David Zvi Kalman
By David Zvi Kalman
-
Culture Appealing to a higher authority — why cannabis provides a unique opportunity for the kosher industry
The ad is unusual, to say the least. In the video, posted to YouTube, a group of garbed hasidic men pose in front of a green screen as international Yiddish pop sensation Lipa Schmeltzer, standing behind a camera, tries to paint them into various classic New York locations. Lipa’s having a hard time; the paintings…
-
Culture How the Jewish calendar got coded — and how ingenious coders made it happen
Humanity is currently engaged in a massive, civilization-sized project to digitize all knowledge. You may have heard about this. The project is huge, but it’s not unified; contained within it are thousands of smaller projects, each devoted to digitization in a specific field. Some of these fields have developed slowly, while others have zoomed ahead….
-
Culture Why I made a siddur for cigarettes and what it does (and doesn’t) mean
Before you is a cigarette box designed to look like a small prayer book. The idea for this object had been rattling around in my head since 2015. Realizing that I did not have the technical skills to make it myself, I contacted Rachel Jackson, a scribe and bookbinder, and during the summer of 2017…
-
Culture Computers can write Torah now — should we be excited or terrified?
The premise was mine. I typed: Once the CEO of Apple approached the Kotzker Rebbe and asked him why he should continue believing in God. The Kotzker answered: Yes, I wondered. What did he answer? I pressed Enter. On the screen, it appeared: ”I am a lamp. I give light to others. But I do…
-
Culture The secret Jewish history of those kosher fruit-jelly slices
As I gazed at the Passover aisle in the supermarket, a scene from “Apollo 13” flashed before my eyes. Tom Hanks and his crew are stranded above the moon with a rapidly depleting supply of oxygen and no possibility of resupply or rescue. If the astronauts are going to fix their ship, they will have…
-
Culture What Hasidim can teach everyone about staying safe on the Internet
Last year, the journalist Kevin Roose wrote about Caleb Cain, a young, white, twenty-something man who came to sympathize with the alt-right (and then abandon them) simply by watching YouTube videos. Cain’s journey was largely shaped by YouTube’s algorithm, which responded to his viewership by recommending increasingly right-wing content. Roose, who has spent years exploring…
-
Culture The insanely fascinating history of Hanukkah light
It is American Hanukkah’s perennial irony that this so-called “Festival of Lights” is both literally and figuratively outshone by the myriad Christmas lights that blanket trees and yards from well before Hanukkah begins to well after it concludes. Though observant viewers might glimpse a handful of candles by the window during the brief time that…
-
Culture Why Are So Many Jewish Podcasts So Bad — And What Can We Do About It?
Podcasting, you may have heard, is booming. Listenership is up, so is awareness of the medium, and high-quality podcasts seem to be popping up everywhere. As with television, the medium itself has recently become more respectable, including among the Hollywood A-listers; Oscar Isaac stars in “Homecoming,” while an episode of “Reply All” is being adapted…
Most Popular
- 1
News ‘Whose religious freedom?’: Scenes from a Jewish rally for abortion rights
- 2
New York Voices 99 years ago, she was born on the Lower East Side (and she still remembers everything)
- 3
Culture Is Elon Musk Jewish?
- 4
Opinion The Buffalo shooter blamed his problems on the Jews. Tucker Carlson’s response will only make things worse
In Case You Missed It
-
News Jewish Queer Youth is growing. For closeted Orthodox and Sephardic teens, that ‘means the world’
-
Fast Forward Minnesota GOP apologizes for Soros puppetmaster video
-
Fast Forward Israeli ambassador says House Democrats’ call for US probe of journalist’s killing isn’t ‘fair’
-
Opinion Look beyond the Buffalo murders. The extremists’ ideology is mainstream on the right.