A decade after helping launch the Shabbat dinner nonprofit OneTable, CEO Aliza Kline is stepping down from the role, effective Dec. 31, eJewishPhilanthropy has learned.

Kline said that she is leaving the position with no specific plans for her next step, but felt that, as a founding CEO, she had achieved her goals for OneTable — creating a viable, healthy organization — and felt that she was less invested in continuing the nonprofit’s flagship program — Shabbat dinners for young adults. 

“As a person who loves to build and design efforts, we have three offerings at OneTable,” she said, explaining that these were its flagship young adult meals, an emerging initiative organizing dinners for adults over the age of 50 (“OneTable Together”) and a new endeavor of licensing its proprietary platform to other organizations (“Powered by OneTable”).

“I see myself really drawn to the one that’s the newest and that we’re still cultivating and developing. And I think for the CEO of an organization like this and this size, you want somebody who is fresh-eyed for all of the offerings, including the one that is now our most historic one, because it’s just a different kind of energy and perspective,” she said.

The organization has employed the global executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles to search for Kline’s replacement. 

In 2014, the Paul E. Singer Foundation and the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life conceived of the idea for OneTable — harnessing the power of Shabbat meals to connect Jews in their 20s and 30s to each other and to their Jewish identities. They brought Kline — the founding director of the Mayyim Hayyim mikveh and education center — on board to develop the concept into an autonomous organization. 

“Throughout her tenure, OneTable has reached incredible milestones in just ten years, including engaging more than 285,000 young adults at 150,000 Shabbat dinners — totaling more than 1 million seats around those Shabbat tables. OneTable has achieved exceptional success, and Aliza leaves the organization with a strong foundation poised for continued growth,”  OneTable Board Chair Rob Orley said in a statement. “Her legacy of innovation, success and meaning will continue for future generations who benefit from the resources OneTable provides.”

Ahead of her departure, Kline spoke with eJP about her time at OneTable, her decision to step down and her plans for the future.

Judah Ari Gross: So after more than 10 years at OneTable, why are you stepping down now? 

Aliza Kline: I was also the founding executive director of Mayyim Hayyim, which is a mikveh and education center based in Boston. [I was also there] for about 11 years.

And then, in that case, I had circumstances in my life that changed, and it became a really helpful opportunity to sort of look back and see whether I needed the organization more or it needed me more. So, it was interesting to me, I’ve been at OneTable for about the same amount of time. 

In both cases, I was hired by a founding board of directors or founders to become the founding professional and build something. And it’s not that our work is done by any means, but we’ve hit some major milestones that indicated to me that, ‘OK, if I was hired to build this thing, there are a lot of things that have been built.’

We have a staff of 60. We have a budget of $10-12 million each year. We’re engaging upwards of 90,000 participants in just one of our offerings — and we have three offerings. We have a reserve, thank God. We have a strong board. Those pieces that are indicators of an organization having shifted from its startup mode to its mezzanine or growth mode. And I feel good, we got to those places. 

And then, as a person who loves to build and design efforts, we have three offerings at OneTable. And I see myself really drawn to the one that’s the newest and that we’re still cultivating and developing. And I think for the CEO of an organization like this and this size, you want somebody who is fresh-eyed for all of the offerings, including the one that is now our most historic one, because it’s just a different kind of energy and perspective.

I’m not one of those people who likes to find something [new] and then leave a minute later. I really want to actually set up the systems to be healthy, not just get the concept off the ground. So I think the biggest indicator for me is just how strong the staff is.

And the world is crying out for all kinds of help and resources. And I’m an all-in kind of person. So it’s hard to have been so very focused on the mission of OneTable and really supporting people through small-group connections, Shabbat and Jewish connection, specifically for young adults. So I’m kind of curious to see if I expand the aperture, what’s next.

JAG: The announcement that I saw about your departure was a bit vague about what comes next for you. So what’s your next step?

AK: The reason it’s vague is because I literally don’t have a plan. I’m not leaving OneTable for another job or another opportunity.

I haven’t really had the space to even really dive into what I could do next because, as I mentioned, I’m sort of all-in. I want to leave the organization as robust as I possibly can.

But if I imagine [my future], then there’s a few different directions. One of the worlds that OneTable really functions in is ‘tech-enabled social connection,’ which sounds very jargony. But [it’s] central to how we function is this platform. And the idea of a platform is that last Friday night, there were 709 dinners for 6,000 people from all across the U.S. and Toronto. And they were all different styles and all different opportunities. And we’re not the only people to use a platform like that to encourage more social connection and joy.

There’s companies like Meetup, for example, Timeleft, which bring strangers together for dinners. There’s The Dinner Party, which is actually a client of ours. There’s a lot of different organizations that are also really thinking about how to address the epidemic of loneliness that exists in the world. How might technology, which is often a source of social isolation, help alleviate it?

In the Jewish space, I’m very interested in this cross section between Jewish practice — a kind-of living wisdom — and social connection. I really think that they are totally interconnected.

One of the things I’m saddest to leave about at OneTable is that we’re in the midst of a major study sponsored by the Templeton Foundation about the connection between Shabbat dinner and human flourishing. And I’m very sad to not be here for the conclusion of that. I’ll have to follow it from afar.

I think people have a need for a sense of rootedness, especially in the Jewish community, really in the whole universe right now, everybody is so unmoored, and I think that Jewish wisdom and practice can be a source of that connection.

I’m also having some interesting conversations in the kind of pro-democracy or anti-polarization spaces. I’m really concerned about the way humans are talking about each other, how Jews are talking about each other, and the move towards extremes.

JAG: Looking back at the past year, people have been referring to ‘The Surge’ in Jewish engagement over the past year. How has that played out at OneTable? 

AK: We’ve recalculated how we start time. OneTable is on a calendar basis for our finances and for our goals, but really, we kind of restarted and began counting from Oct. 8[, 2023].

Immediately there was a 105% uptick in people applying to be hosts. So OneTable runs entirely with volunteers who are provided with resources and financial support to host their peers.

And most of our hosts had previously been guests, and this was an amazing uptick of people saying, ‘I have been a guest before, but now I need to host. I really need to gather. I just need to do something Jewish with other Jews. I need to do it this week.’

We saw an immediate uptick in people talking about Israel at their Shabbat dinners — we track all of this stuff —  so we created a whole set of resources, post-Oct. 7 resources: educational things, volunteer opportunities, ways to bring the war or your concerns to your Shabbat dinner table, ways to become active on your own. 

We definitely think that ‘The Surge’ data tracks. We’re up 30 to 40% in terms of individual participants, numbers of dinners that are posted, the number of people that are engaging across the board. I think about 95,000 people have participated in OneTable since Oct. 7, 2023. On average they’re coming three to four times and some people coming way more. 

And we’ve also seen it anecdotally: We’ve had more people apply for jobs than ever before. And in many cases, this is their first Jewish job. So I think that it is totally true. 

What’s been interesting for us is we had our own heshbon nefesh [soul searching]. OneTable has our core values: oneg (pleasure), the unique joy connected to Shabbat; hachnasat orchim (bringing in guests), which we translate as hospitality or welcoming; and kedusha (holiness), which we translate as elevation. And when there is so much sadness and trauma, what do you do with those values? Do they become secondary or primary? Is what we’re doing enough? I think we asked a lot of those questions.

And if you look on the platform, you’ll just go through pages and pages and pages of people saying, ‘It’s absolutely what I need.’ And I am very, very inspired by the insistence on joy and togetherness and creativity that young Jewish adults are still demonstrating even in the face of all of the trauma, and I think it bodes well for our future.

JAG: In terms of ‘The Surge’ that you have seen, is that something that peaked early on after the attacks or has it been sustained?

AK: So we have sustained this 30 to 40% increase. We didn’t use to have 700 dinners a week. We used to have 300, 400, 500, maybe 600 — and now it really has been ranging between 600 and 700 since then. That’s enormous. And it’s both in large cities — like in New York City, there could be 150 dinners in a week — but also in a smaller city in South Carolina.

Over time, we’ve also seen more people intentionally invite people to their dinners who are not Jewish to share something that is positive that they’re proud of. And I’ll tell you, some of the people who’ve done that the most beautifully are Israelis who are living in America.

I see that as a very important step in terms of addressing antisemitism. I think they see [having Shabbat meals] as just essential, but it’s also really affirming because then they have their fellow graduate students for example or colleagues from work, [who can see that ] Judaism is awesome, it’s so beautiful. And they see it as a real messaging about Jewish joy and benefits in such a hard time.

JAG: In terms of this post-Oct. 7 period, has there been an effort to more actively use OneTable to do outreach, to leverage the relationships that have been built to combat antisemitism or anti-Zionism? 

AK: We do a lot through partnership and those partnerships might be with a local business, but we also partner with alumni from BBYO or Birthright Israel. OneTable is one of the first resources that [those organizations] use to strengthen those connections. But we have also partnered with, for example, the Israel Policy Forum, where they want to have Shabbat dinners to discuss, I don’t know, ‘Is the two-state solution dead?’

Rather than OneTable becoming experts in policy we do it through partnership. So right now we’re partnering with the Shalom Hartman Institute, we’ve partnered with Boundless, with all of these different organizations, so that we can amplify excellent content and provide a wide range of options.

In November 2023, which now feels like 10 lifetimes ago, we also partnered with Open Door Media and Judaism Unpacked for people who want to have a dinner talking about Israel, and I think 9,000 people signed up that one week, which is our biggest ever. And there was an info session with [American-Israeli author] Yossi Klein Halevi for about 200 people who had volunteered to host dinners 

In general in the American Jewish community and certainly among young adults, there’s waxing and waning of interest in, like, leaning in [to conversations about Israel] versus just coming together. So that [focus on Israel] has not sustained itself. 

JAG: As you are wrapping up at OneTable, are there any statistics or any metrics that you’re particularly proud of?

AK: Well, we went from zero to — by the end of this year — above 290,000 participants. Those are registered users. I’m pretty confident there’s a whole lot more. Just through the OneTable core product.

There have now been hundreds of thousands of reservations through our platform — beyond Shabbat. We’ve had over a million reservations at Shabbat dinners, but also now we’ve had hundreds of thousands of reservations for other types of programs. I like the expansiveness of it. 

I’m especially proud of our staff. I think that they model that you can bring this warmth and love and kindness and creativity and also extremely high productivity at the same time. There’s now 60 staff across 20 states and Canada. 

The board started with two institutional funders, the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life and the Paul E. Singer Foundation, and now we have hundreds of donors, including some other really significant foundations. We’ve raised collectively $65 million so far. So those are all just exciting moments.

JAG: What do you see in terms of the future of the organization going forward?

AK: My favorite topic. We’re almost two and a half years through a strategic plan.

For our ‘Challah and Butter’ — Shabbat dinner for 20s and 30s — that, of course, used to be all millennials, and now about 50% of our participants are Generation Z. So we have to really understand Gen Z. The goal is to reach 10% of Jewish adults in the U.S. on an annual basis. That would mean 100-140,000 people annually. We’re not there yet; that’s a goal that we want to sustain for that program.

We just launched ‘OneTable Together.’ That is for people who are north of 50, who are at a new stage of their life, but we found a lot of parallels between what they need and what a 25-year-old needs. In many cases, older adults are moving, they’re starting new stages of their life. They’re less inclined to maybe go to a shul, or if they did [in the past], it was really tied to their parenting. ‘Gray divorce’ is the fastest growing, so there are people who are looking for community and friends, romantic partners.

And then the third offering, which I’m really proud of, is called ‘Powered by OneTable.’ The technical term is ‘white labeling.’ Initially, we borrowed someone else’s [platform] — another company owned by a young Jewish person — and then we built our own so that we could license it and customize it for other organizations. I think it has enormous potential.

There are a lot of people in the Jewish community who are thinking about both the growth that’s possible through small groups and DIY Jewish practice. We can enable that.

So right now there are 50 campuses that are powered by OneTable through their Hillels. The Jewish National Fund has an aspirational goal of 1,000 peer-hosted Shabbat dinners next year. The Association of Jewish Studies has an online conference happening right now and all of the sessions are hosted by peers all over the U.S. through a Powered by OneTable product.

I just think that that is enormously exciting. We’ve had a couple of philanthropic investors who are really entrepreneurial and ready to take risks and so that’s been a great place for them to be also so I’m very excited to see where that goes.

JAG: Do you think that you will take a break before heading into your next venture? 

AK: I live in New York, I have three daughters, and one is still at home. She’s a 15-year-old, a sophomore, and I really love spending time with her. Last year, my parents moved into our apartment building. My dad is a retired rabbi, he’s 89. My mom is a retired dancer, she’s 84. I get to spend Shabbat with them every week, but moving forward I am looking forward to being able to really enjoy them as much as possible. That’s an amazing gift that I have, which I know is time-limited and I want to spend time with them.

But I don’t feel fatigued. I feel energized. I have been lucky to have had sabbaticals in my past and I really appreciate them and I think those are really beneficial. But that’s not where I am. I’m fired up.