The high temperature during Super Bowl Sunday is expected to be a frigid 11 degrees, but Chabad plans to warm up Jewish fans who will be on hand for the game.
Rabbi Sholom Brook, co-director of Chabad Young Professionals Uptown Minneapolis, will host a kosher tailgate along with other local Chabad rabbis, offering up deli sandwiches, hot dogs, cold drinks and a stand for people to wrap tefillin before the 6:30 p.m. game at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Rather than pull for either team—the Philadelphia Eagles or New England Patriots—the rabbi says “we are rooting for everybody to stay safe and warm.”
Eric Lidenfield, a 30-year-old attorney originally from New York, isn’t much of a football fan, but he plans to attend the tailgate event on Sunday because, he says, “I like being around people who like Chabad.”
The organizers had hoped to host the event in one of the parking lots surrounding the stadium, but that space has been reserved for the NFL. Instead, Brook and the other rabbis decided to rent an RV and use that as the base for operations. It’s a joint effort, says Brook, that includes Minnesota emissaries Rabbi Moshe Feller, Rabbi Mordechai Grossbaum, Rabbi Shmuel Silberstein, Rabbi Yitzi Steiner and Rabbi Shloime Greene.
They are not revealing the location of the tailgate until Sunday for security reasons, but hope to have it stationed near an entrance to the Minneapolis Skyway System—the covered pedestrian footbridges that connect buildings throughout much of the downtown area.
“People can have some kosher food,” says Brook, “and a warm spot to get ready for the big game.”
Click here to find kosher food, prayer services and Jewish company this weekend in Minneapolis, as well as to find out the exact tailgate site.
For social-media updates throughout the day, use the handle: @koshertailgate.
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