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An app that can generate 64,000 kosher cheesecake recipes aims to prove AI’s value for Orthodox Jews
(JTA) — Sara Goldstein’s regular cheesecake recipe is like the rest of the kosher food she makes and shares on her Instagram account — “straightforward, and I wouldn’t say too adventurous.”
But she tried something special this year ahead of Shavuot, a Jewish holiday that begins Thursday night, when dairy foods are traditionally on the menu. In honor of the holiday, she whipped up a bourbon caramel cheesecake, with candied pecans on top.
Goldstein’s baking shakeup was spurred by an online tool that, using artificial intelligence, allows users to mix and match ingredients that can be made into more than 64,000 different cheesecake recipes. For Goldstein, a chef and kosher recipe developer who lives in Lakewood, New Jersey, CheesecakeWizard.AI offers a welcome challenge.
“You have to be extra creative in the kosher world because it’s very limited,” she said. “And I think it definitely opened people’s eyes to what’s possible. I mean, saying there’s 64,000 combinations that are kosher — it’s really, really cool.”
The app’s creator, Brooklyn marketing executive Avi Bree, doesn’t just want to push the bounds of what gets served on Shavuot tables. He’s also looking to prove to clients his value in a world of AI-generated press releases — and to show his fellow Orthodox Jews that ChatGPT and other AI tools can be a boon to Jewish observance, not a threat, despite concerns about internet use in his community.
“Not everybody who is going to go to this website is actually going to actually bake the cheesecake,” Bree said. “They’ll futz around with it, and they’ll push a couple buttons and it’ll make us all meshuggeneh trying to come up with the craziest flavor.… While they’re doing it, the company that’s sponsoring it, their logo and their name is there.”
The app asks users to select their crust, filling and topping preferences, then uses artificial intelligence to spit out a recipe to match. An image integration feature called Midjourney allows users to see computer-generated pictures of what their cheesecakes might look like — from carrot-cake crusts to maple and sweet potato filling to savory toppings such as an olive tapenade.
Since its launch last week, Cheesecake Wizard has been used by about 12,000 people to generate 45,000 recipes — though it remains to be seen how many actual cheesecakes result. Bree said that like Goldstein, he had been drawn to the “boozy options” in the Cheesecake Wizard interface and hoped that when the holiday begins Thursday night, he’ll get a chance to partake.
“After a very long week of work, I’d like to sit down on Shavuos eating cheesecake, and having a splash of bourbon on top would definitely, you know, add a little more enjoyment to the holiday festivities,” he said.
Bree’s experiment with AI started last spring, when clients began to drop him because, they said, they could use the new technology to create their marketing materials instead. He decided to explore the new terrain. Passover was approaching, and Bree’s first venture was a day-trip generator, inspired by the hassle Orthodox families can face when deciding what to do in the middle of the weeklong holiday, when Jewish schools and workplaces are closed.
Avi Bree created a cheesecake AI generator to show his Orthodox community the value of AI. (Courtesy Bree)
CanWeGoNow launched on the first day of chol hamoed, the period of the holiday when travel is allowed, and quickly crashed as the link ricocheted across WhatsApp groups that are the primary form of communication for many Orthodox Jews. Bree called his wife from synagogue and said he needed to scrap their own family’s plan to take their six children to an amusement park. He had to spend the time getting the site back up.
“I said, ‘Pessel, the bottom line is I stepped into something that might be amazing,’” he recalled. “I generally don’t work on chol hamoed, but if there’s a loss involved, the rabbinical leaders say you can work. So I said, ‘If I don’t take care of this, the whole thing’s going to fold.’”
Ultimately, 20,000 people generated tens of thousands of trip ideas in the United States, Israel, England, Australia and even Mexico, where hundreds of people at a kosher-for-Passover hotel got wind of the app.
Bree lost money on the venture, but he gained confidence that AI could catch on in his community, despite some of his Orthodox peers’ ambivalence toward new technologies. Now, he has relaunched his marketing firm to focus squarely on using AI to reach Orthodox audiences. (Its name, MarketAIng, makes the gambit visible.)
“The Jewish community is always a little bit behind, let’s just face it,” he said. “Our tradition is what kept us going all these thousands of years, so anytime something new comes into the picture, we’re always a little more wary and always a little more concerned. So AI really hasn’t made inroads yet.”
Bree’s latest effort hit a turning point while he was in synagogue, which he referred to as “a mini-networking event” that he attends three times a day for prayers. A self-described ultra-Orthodox Jew, he had been casting about for a kosher corporate partner for the cheesecake bot. An acquaintance named Akiva overheard him lamenting his lack of connections to a fellow worshiper after evening services.
Akiva said his wife worked for a kosher dairy-products company called Norman’s. A few WhatsApp messages later, Bree was in touch with executives there — and now the company’s name and logo appear on the website, and its products are inserted into the cheesecake recipes that the tool generates. Goldstein has also promoted the company on her social media posts about Cheesecake Wizard.
The sell wasn’t totally straightforward, Bree said. An executive “was a little bit nervous because of the internet aspect,” he recalled. “Right now in the Jewish community, it’s a weird sort of policy we have, like, we don’t encourage you to use it but if you’re going to use it, have a filter on it.”
Indeed, internet use has been a fraught topic in haredi Orthodox communities, with rabbis warning that online access can be a gateway to inappropriate content that conflicts with and diverts attention from Jewish practice.
Some Orthodox leaders have urged Jews to reject the internet entirely. In 2012, a rally warning of the dangers of the web drew more than 40,000 men to Citi Field in New York; last year, two massive rallies for women urged them to delete their social media profiles and give up their smartphones.
With the abrupt arrival of consumer-facing AI in recent months, the technology has drawn specific attention from some rabbinic leaders for the first time. Last month, a dozen rabbis from the traditionalist Skver Hasidic community, based in New Square, New York, explicitly banned its use.
“It is possible that at this point, not everyone knows the magnitude and scope of the danger, but it has become clear to us in our souls that this thing will be a trap for all of us, young and old,” the rabbis wrote in their decree last month. “Therefore, the use of ‘AI’ is strictly prohibited in any shape and form, even by phone.”
Despite these warnings, many haredi Orthodox Jews use the internet for work, shopping and other activities. But in some communities, users are expected to install “kosher” filters that block content considered inappropriate, and many Orthodox yeshivas require parents to install filters as a condition of enrollment. Bree said his own children’s Brooklyn yeshiva required a phone filter, which he installed, and that he made sure to construct his apps so that they would function on phones whose function is limited to WhatsApp and basic communication tools.
He also said that while Norman’s was persuaded to move forward with the cheesecake app because it had its own website, he was considering adding a disclaimer.
“We might have to actually make a little statement on the website saying something along the lines of, you know, ‘Please abide by your rabbinical guidelines regarding internet use,’” Bree said. “Because people were saying, ‘Oh, what are you pushing internet for?’ We’re not pushing it. If you’re using it anyways, then you could use this.”
Goldstein said she wasn’t sure she would become a regular AI user but thought that Cheesecake Wizard, for which she posted an instructional video for her followers on Wednesday, was a comfortable entry point for her community. “I definitely think it’ll take people a little while, maybe, to warm up to the concept, but it’s a great way to introduce it,” she said.
In her heavily Orthodox town of Lakewood, Goldstein said a wide range of internet uses are tolerated — and that she sees a value in remaining online.
“I’m not telling people to come start using Instagram, start using AI — it’s if you’re here [and] it’s where you’re at, then this is a fun way to make something amazing, to elevate something for chag,” Goldstein said, using the Hebrew word meaning holiday. “For people who are already out there on the internet — whether you need it for work, or just, you’re not at that place yet to completely eradicate internet from your life — here’s a way to take these tools and do something even spiritual with it.”
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Campus Antisemitism Surges at Start of New Academic Year, New Report Finds
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas activists at Dartmouth College. Photo: New Deal Coalition/Instagram.
Incidents of campus antisemitism continue to rise around the world, as revealed in a new monthly report published by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) civil rights organization.
Published by the group’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC), the report said CAM recorded 53 antisemitic incidents on college campuses in the month of September, a 178 percent increase over the previous month, when 19 were recorded despite students being present on campus during the summer holiday.
“This surge reflects the resumption of the academic year and the persistent problem of antisemitism at colleges and university,” the report said. “In France, students at Sorbonne University in Paris discussed a targeted shooting attack against Jewish students at the school. In Argentina, students at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba seized control of parts of the campus, protesting Israel’s ‘genocide’ of the Palestinians.”
The report added that the US saw 38 campus antisemitism incidents in September, several of which The Algemeiner reported.
In upstate New York, for example, law enforcement agencies filed hate crime charges against two Syracuse University students who they say forcefully gained entry into a Jewish fraternity’s off-campus house during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and heaved a bag of pork at a wall, causing its contents to splatter across the floor.
Allen Groves, the university’s chief officer of student experience, said in a statement issued on behalf of the school that law enforcement captured the suspects just moments after they attempted to abscond to an unknown location in a getaway car. He added that they will face disciplinary charges brought by the school in addition to pending criminal penalties.
In Hanover, New Hampshire, an unknown person or group graffitied a swastika, the symbol of the Nazi Party, outside the dormitory of a Jewish student at Dartmouth College.
The graffitiing of a swastika as a method of intimidation and expression of hate on the campus shocked Dartmouth;s Jewish community and stood out for being perpetrated only days before Jews across the US and the world observed Rosh Hashanah.
“With Jewish high holidays around the corner, our community feels the impact of this crime even more profoundly,” Ruby Benjamin, a Jewish Dartmouth student and president of the campus Chabad, told The Dartmouth, the college’s official student newspaper. “In a time that should be marked with joy, we are forced to look hatred in the eye. While we are disgusted by yesterday’s events, we are not afraid. Today, as always, we stand together as a strong community.”
In Manhattan, New York, an unknown person graffitied antisemitic messages inside the Weinstein residence hall at New York University, prompting school president Linda Mills to issue a statement condemning antisemitism and imploring students to uphold the institution’s values.
The outrages continued into the month of October. Just last week, Cornell University took center stage in another campus antisemitism outrage when its student newspaper published an anti-Zionist opinion piece which promoted Holocaust inversion by melding a Nazi symbol with the Star of David.
Written by Karim-Aly Assam, the article implied an equivalence of Israel’s military objective to eradicate Hamas from Gaza with the Nazi genocide of Jews across Europe during World War II, a trope which anti-Israel activists and antisemites traffic to foster negative public opinion against Israel’s efforts to secure its borders and quell jihadist activity in the Palestinian territories.
The tactic — Holocaust inversion — is one part of a triad of Holocaust-skepticism, the other two components of which are “denial” and “distortion” — used to defame Jews and deny that they are and have been victims of hatred. Once reserved to neo-Nazi media, Holocaust inversion, experts say, is being increasingly embraced by other more mainstream segments of society.
A new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) found that staff and faculty are accelerating the antisemitism crisis on US college campuses by politicizing the classroom, promoting anti-Israel bias, and even discriminating against Jewish colleagues.
The survey of “Jewish-identifying US-based faculty members” found that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it. Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent).
Additionally, 50 percent of respondents said that anti-Zionist faculty have established de facto, or “shadow,” boycotts of Israel on campus even in the absence of formal declaration or recognition of one by the administration.
“What we’re seeing is a betrayal of the fundamental principles of academic freedom and collegiality,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement when the report was released. “Jewish faculty are being forced to hide their identities, excluded from professional opportunities, and told by their own colleagues what constitutes antisemitism — even as they experience it firsthand. This hostile environment is driving talented educators and researchers away from careers they’ve dedicated their lives to building.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Bob Vylan Frontman Responds to British Airways Pulling Sponsorship of Louis Theroux’s Podcast Over Interview
Louis Theroux in conversation with Bobby Vylan on the Oct. 24, 2025, episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
The frontman of the British punk rap duo Bob Vylan responded on Sunday to the decision by British Airways to withdraw sponsorship from Louis Theroux’s podcast following his interview with the musician, who said he did not regret his “death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” chant at the Glastonbury Festival and would do it again.
A spokesperson for British Airways told PA Media that content in the interview “clearly breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters.”
“We and our third-party media agency have processes in place to ensure these issues don’t occur and we’re investigating how this happened,” added the spokesperson. “Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused, and the advert has been removed.”
Bob Vylan frontman Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, called the move a “scare tactic” in a post on X. “I went on the podcast and as hard as the lobby groups and media tried, they couldn’t twist anything I said. So, they have resorted to lobbying for Louis’ sponsorship to be pulled in an attempt to scare others out of giving me a platform.”
“Their hope to further vilify me couldn’t run, so they target Louis to make an example for sitting with me,” he wrote in separate posts. “The lobby groups, the British government, and media are determined to make an example of me, all because I dare to want an end to a genocidal occupying force guilty of war crimes.”
Robinson-Foster was a guest on Theroux’s podcast last week and talked in great length about the “death, death to the IDF” chant that he led at Glastonbury in June in Somerset, England. The musician told the podcast host and documentarian that he is “not regretful of it at all” and “would do it again tomorrow, [and] twice on Sundays.” He also called “death to the IDF” a “perfect chant.”
“The subsequent backlash that I’ve faced — it’s minimal,” he added. “It’s minimal compared to what people in Palestine are going through. If that can be my contribution and if I can have my Palestinian friends and people that I meet from Palestine, that have had to flee, that have lost members in double digits of their family and they can say, ‘Yo, your chant, I love it.’ Or ‘it gave me a breath of fresh air or whatever’ – and I don’t want to overstate the importance of the chant. That’s not what I’m trying to do – but if I have their support, they’re the people that I’m doing it for. They’re the people that I’m being vocal for.”
Robinson-Foster also claimed that Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set was praised and called “fantastic” by employees of the BBC, which live streamed the Glastonbury Festival. The BBC apologized for live streaming Bob Vylan’s “offensive and deplorable behavior” and BBC chairman Samir Shah separately apologized for the network’s mistake in broadcasting the band’s “unconscionable antisemitic views.” The anti-IDF chant was even condemned by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
After the Glastonbury incident, the United Talent Agency dropped Bob Vylan as its client, and the band had several concerts and festival performances canceled. Bob Vylan had their US visas revoked and are currently under criminal investigation in the UK because of the chant. There was a recorded rise in antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom the day after Bob Vylan’s anti-IDF chant at Glastonbury, but Robinson-Foster told Theroux last week he does not believe he contributed to creating “an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community” in the UK following the festival.
The vocalist insisted in a social media post last month “there is nothing antisemitic or criminal about anything I said at Glastonbury.” Bob Vylan previously said in a statement on Instagram that the “death to the IDF” chant was a call “for the dismantling of a violent military machine.”
Robinson-Foster called for violence against Zionists during a September concert in Amsterdam, and while performing in Spain over the summer, he encouraged “armed resistance” against the IDF and proclaimed, “Down with Israel.”
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Embattled Irish Jewish Leaders Congratulate Country’s New President Despite Anti-Israel Record, Seek Fresh Start
President-elect Catherine Connolly is applauded by Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheal Martin and Irish Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) Simon Harris at Dublin Castle, on the day of the announcement of the results of the Irish presidential election in Dublin, Ireland, Oct. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Ireland’s Jewish community has welcomed the election of the country’s new president, expressing hope that her leadership will foster unity despite her record of anti-Israel remarks and previous comments defending Hamas.
On Friday, Catherine Connolly won a historic landslide victory, securing 63 percent of the vote — the largest margin in Ireland’s history — defeating center-right candidate Heather Humphreys.
As a left-wing lawmaker who has served in Ireland’s parliament since 2016, Connolly’s election marks the rise of a prominent anti-Israel voice at a time when the country has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics amid the war in Gaza, a stance that has only intensified in recent months.
“My message is use your voice in every way you can, because a republic and a democracy needs constructive questioning, and together we can shape a new republic that values everybody,” Connolly said in a post on X following her victory.
“My message is use your voice in every way you can, because a republic and a democracy needs constructive questioning, and together we can shape a new republic that values everybody.” – President-Elect Catherine Connolly. pic.twitter.com/Go6D2SIdzm
— Connolly for President (@catherinegalway) October 25, 2025
In Ireland, the president serves largely as a symbolic figure, representing the country in diplomatic matters and fulfilling key constitutional duties but without the power to enact laws or policies.
In the past, Connolly has drawn repeated criticism from the country’s leaders and the local Jewish community for her anti-Israel rhetoric, which has been accused of going too far into the realm of antisemitism. The Irish president-elect has even defended the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
At first, Connolly said she was “reluctant to unequivocally condemn Oct. 7.”
She later clarified that Hamas’s atrocities — which included murdering 1,200 people, kidnapping 251 hostages, and perpetrating widespread rape and other sexual violence — were “absolutely wrong,” while also asserting that the attacks did not constitute genocide and that the history of the conflict “did not start on Oct. 7.”
Many anti-Israel activists have similarly framed Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion as a justified response to Israeli policy toward Gaza and the Palestinians more broadly in an apparent attempt to defend the massacre.
Connolly has also sharply criticized Israel, labeling it a “terrorist state,” claiming it is not “democratic,” and accusing it of seeking to “accomplish Jewish supremacy.”
‘If we in this Dáil cannot recognise that Israel is a terrorist state, then we are in serious trouble.’
Catherine’s full speech on the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill /
Óráid iomlán Catherine ar an mBille: https://t.co/fYEisivU8B pic.twitter.com/6zE0DNmGc3— Connolly for President (@catherinegalway) June 27, 2025
Despite her well-known record of hostilities toward the Jewish state, the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI) — the main representative body of Irish Jews — congratulated Connolly on her presidential victory.
“The Jewish community in Ireland looks forward to working constructively with the president, as we have with her predecessors, in fostering mutual respect, understanding, and the flourishing of all communities that make up the fabric of Irish life,” Maurice Cohen, president of JRCI, said in a post on X.
“We are sincerely hopeful that President-Elect Connolly will engage positively with Ireland’s small but very proud Irish Jewish community,” she continued.
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland warmly congratulates Catherine Connolly on her presidential win.
We are sincerely hopeful that President-Elect Connolly will engage positively with Ireland’s small but very proud Irish Jewish community. pic.twitter.com/mkBkiNlodd
— Rachel Moiselle (@RachelMoiselle) October 25, 2025
Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder also congratulated Connolly, expressing hope that she would use the office to “unite rather than divide,” while acknowledging lingering concerns about her past rhetoric and views.
“She has described [Hamas] as ‘part of the fabric of the Palestinian people,’ yet seems entirely untroubled by that reality. She appears not to object to its remaining in power, even as it openly beats and executes its own people,” Wieder told the Jewish Chronicle.
“Such views do not reflect the outlook of someone committed to a secure and peaceful future,” he continued.
“I would hope that President Connolly will take the opportunity in due course to engage directly with Ireland’s Jewish community, hear our concerns, and understand better how the conflict continues to affect our small community here,” he said.