For years, Chabad houses around the world have served as a familiar address for Israeli travelers seeking a warm meal, a Jewish holiday gathering, a Shabbat dinner or simply a place to meet other Israelis far from home. Now, an Israeli secular movement says it wants to offer travelers another option.
The Free Seculars movement is set to open what it calls the world’s first “secular house” next week on the Thai island of Koh Phangan, offering community gatherings, Friday night meals and social activities built around a secular Jewish identity. The group says the new center will operate as an alternative to Chabad houses, with similar communal functions but without religious rituals such as kiddush.
The movement said the house will serve both Israeli travelers visiting the island and Israelis who live there, creating a space for Friday dinners, Israeli music and singing, community evenings, games, networking events for travelers and “living room conversations” on topics such as freedom, meaning and secular identity.
Planned programming also includes workshops in Jewish-secular philosophy and discussions about how secular Israelis can connect to Jewish history, culture and tradition without adopting religious practice. The movement said it hopes to open similar secular houses in other popular destinations around the world.
“We saw the very successful model of Chabad houses, and it is time there was an alternative for secular people as well,” Ilai Harsgor-Hendin, chairman of the Free Seculars movement, said in an interview with the ynet studio. “We are not telling Chabad houses not to open abroad. They can open, but it is time there was also a choice.”
According to Harsgor-Hendin, the Koh Phangan center will provide Friday dinners, meetings between travelers and Israelis living on the island, social evenings and broader community activities. He said the distinction from Chabad would be clear.
“Anyone looking for kiddush should go to Chabad,” he said. “Anyone looking for a Friday dinner in their own way, a place to meet other Israelis, social evenings and games, should come to the secular house.”
Asked why the movement chose Koh Phangan as the site of its first such center, Harsgor-Hendin said the island has a large Israeli community and is a popular destination for Israeli travelers. He added that the movement is already examining the possibility of opening additional secular houses elsewhere in the world.
The new center, he said, will not be limited only to Israelis. “We are also open to hosting people who are not Israeli,” he said. “We will be a place where there is a connection between peoples.”
'Secular house'
(Photo: The Free Seculars movement)
During the interview, Harsgor-Hendin also addressed the comparison to Chabad houses and the broader question of Jewish identity abroad. He said there are “many ways to be Jewish” and argued that secular Jews should not feel that communal Jewish spaces abroad must necessarily be religious.
“I am secular, and I do not make kiddush,” he said. “If I come to a Friday dinner where kiddush is being made, that is contrary to my worldview and my way of life. I am a secular Jew, and I am no less Jewish than a religious person. I carry with me the historical heritage of thousands of years of Judaism and choose what to take from it.”