CTeen Rocks the House at Cape Town Sukkos Party
So how did some 100 Cape Town Jewish teens end up in a Sukkah late on a Saturday night where a lively disco (with Jewish music and separate dancing of course), an “Ice Chilla on Tap” bar, Graffiti Art Banners, CTeen T-Shirts and a delicious BBQ all seemed to be pumping with endless energy all night long?
“An incredible initiative” is how Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein described the “Flying High on the High Holidays” project of CTeen Cape Town under the direction of Rabbi Mendel Popack and the full team of Shluchim and Shluchos, Rabbis and Rebbetzins, and Youth Leaders across Cape Town who inspired hundreds of Jewish teens to be more involved in the High Holiday experiences over the last few weeks.
The initiative, to promote teen participation in Shul services over Yom Tov, offered a chance to win a helicopter flip over Cape Town, and for every participating Shul to also get a R500 voucher at Africa’s most visited tourist destination – the V and A Waterfront, was officially launched in the presence of the 250 Middle School learners at the United Herzelia Schools to rousing applauds from all the students.
The participating Shuls noticed a significant uptick in teen participation, and many of the kids shared how appreciative they were that the teens are being recognized as a significant demographic, with such exciting rewards being associated with the High Holiday services.
The actual draw took place at the “Chillin n Grillin” Sukkos event on Motzai Shabbat Hoshana Rabbo evening.
As the teens began to stream in to the central Chabad House where the event was taking place, they were strapped up with the neon “CTeen Cape Town” bands, and got straight to work on a large CTeen cloth banner which will be hanging in the soon to be launched Cape Town CTeen Lounge as well as their own CTeen t-shirts that they were all very excited to take home with them.
A musical Havdala led by Rabbi Levi Popack kicked off the night’s proceedings, with a rousing musical Havdala in the Sukkah followed by a delicious bbq bar with hot burgers, boerewors sausage rolls, salads and ice cream elicited many joyful “Leishev BaSukkah” brochos, as everyone packed in energy for the exciting dancing soon to follow.
Cape Town’s DJ – “DNA” – was setting the tempo for the night upstairs in the main hall where strobing lights, a NYC backdrop, a smoke machine and pumping music had the crowd slowly drifting upstairs and at 10 pm the dancing got going strong. The CTeen anthem’s lyrics “Yes I’m a Jew A proud one too As bright as day It’s my DNA So shout out loud My CTeen crowd A family Forever we’ll be” were bellowing strong and if not for the pause in the music for the raffle announcements would have gone on for much longer.
As the names began to be drawn out loud cheers went up for the crowd including the first four helicopter tour winners – Lance Myerson from Gardens Shul, Gabi Rubin from Ohr Somayach and Jayden katz and Samuel Sherman from Claremont Shul.
The Cteen staff which worked very hard for this event to happen also unveiled a state of the art youth lounge set out with bean bags stuffed around the Playstation gaming consoles, a pool table, table tennis, foosball , a popcorn and slush machine which will all be open to the local youth on a weekly basis to host Cteen events and the like as well as a weekly youth minyan for all the local teens.
Plans are underway for the city-wide CTeen participation in the TGIS 24 hours of learning Torah and some exciting events and raffles around The Shabbos Project which started right here in Cape Town.
Many thanks to Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky and Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky of CTeen international office who, with the incredible support of Keren Meromim, have made CTeen Cape Town possible.
