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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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The post An app that can generate 64,000 kosher cheesecake recipes aims to prove AI’s value for Orthodox Jews appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How I found freedom in a Passover Seder, an amp and a red Fender Duo-Sonic guitar
Passover at my cousin Doug’s house was always a strange blend of ritual, impatience and barely contained chaos. None of us was particularly religious, but we knew the drill: Read the Haggadah, dip the bitter herbs, eat a boatload of matzo, and laugh along as Uncle Sonny delivered his annual denunciation of religion. We rushed through the Seder with the urgency of people trying to outrun a bullet train. Everyone wanted to get to the oleshkas, the tzimmis, and my Grandma Min’s gefilte fish.
At some point during the adult drone that followed — politics, real estate, digestive-related medical complaints — I slipped away from the table in search of Doug’s electric guitar: a red Fender Duo-Sonic. Sleek, curved, impossibly alluring. The first time I saw it, Doug, then 17 or 18, played a halting version of “Hey Joe” for my sister and me. But it wasn’t only the sound that hooked me; it was the shape of the thing. I was 13, only a few months after my Bar Mitzvah, and the guitar felt like contraband, akin to the pot I would soon be smoking. I stared at it with the same stunned focus I reserved for an occasional glimpse of the bare backside of a Playboy centerfold.
The Haggadah asks: Why is this night different from all other nights?
For me, the answer was simple: It was the night I transformed from a pimply suburban teen into something mythic. If daily life — compulsive worry about my untamable Jewy hair, god-awful grades, and a steady stream of unrequited urges — felt like Egypt, then that red Duo-Sonic was my personal Moses.
A few weeks after Passover, my father — a serial entrepreneur who once marketed his own brand of car battery, opened the first Suzuki motorcycle shop in Minneapolis, and launched an eight-track cassette store he called Tape-O-Rama — bought Doug’s Duo-Sonic guitar and his Princeton Reverb amplifier for $150. He was as thrilled about it as I was. I remember him standing in my room, sleeves rolled up, trying to look like he knew what he was talking about. It was endearing and a little sad when he pointed at the amp’s knobs — treble, bass, tremolo, and reverb — and suggested I set them all to five.
“Let’s make ’em all the same, Pete.” He said. “Even Steven.”
My dad knew less than zero about rock, but as always, he wanted to help with something that mattered to me.
The guitar changed my life. Not instantly, but decisively. The first time I played with another kid my own age, my drummer friend Andy Kamman, an impressive musician even as a fifth-grader, I felt something shift. It wasn’t like school band, where I played the alto sax while the band director hovered over us, selecting songs notable only for their excruciating lameness. This was fully ours. No supervision. No rules. No permission required. I pulled my Duo-Sonic and the Princeton amp down the street in my Radio Flyer and set it up in Andy’s basement.
When he and I started playing, it felt shockingly intimate — frightening at first. Not that I knew what a sexual encounter was, but that’s what it felt like: two separate things — guitar and drums; two separate people — me and Andy — merging into a kind of oneness. I had no idea that this sudden unanimity would become an aspiration, not only in music but in all things. Music was simply the clearest expression of that spiritualized coming-together.
I’d play a riff; he’d shift the rhythm; I’d shift again. Words I hadn’t planned poured out. It was as close to conception as I’d get for a while. That transcendent aspect of music — its weird mixture of beauty, ego, and power — was already becoming clear.
By sixth grade we had a band: me on lead guitar and vocals, Andy on drums, Steve Grossman on bass, and Aron Goldfarb on rhythm guitar. We were rehearsing for the Peter Hobart Elementary Spring Concert in Andy’s basement and the whole neighborhood seemed to show up. We had a makeshift PA — one microphone duct-taped to his brother’s stereo — and we played our three originals on repeat. Most of them barely counted as songs. “Sorrowland” was two lines of lyrics and a four-chord progression. “Down by the River” had two chords and one line clearly stolen from Creedence Clearwater.
Our masterpiece was “Exit,” which I wrote during Drug Prevention Week. Every kid had to make a filmstrip warning against marijuana. Mine consisted entirely of dinosaurs I’d rubbed from National Geographic onto overhead projector sheets. I told the class that pot would make you hallucinate brontosauruses, which — completely contrary to the purpose of the curriculum — made drugs sound irresistible.
“Exit” was about a boy who tried to touch his girlfriend’s breast before she was ready and, to soothe his rejection, turned to pot. Its last verse closed with these lyrics:
Your hopes are down and you pick up a J,
it ain’t gonna help you anyway.
But you strike a match and you let it burn
now your mind is ready to turn…
I hit the tremolo pedal on the line “strike a match,” making my voice wobble in druggy vibrato. Everyone went nuts.
With all the attention, the band drama kicked in. Aron, our rhythm guitarist, kept insisting he sing lead — even though we had only one microphone and it was plugged directly into the stereo’s single input. “Hey, Goldfarb, stop being such a dickfarb,” I said into the mic. It got a big laugh. I repeated it until the phrase turned into a song. I strummed some chords and chanted “Goldfarb’s a dickfarb,” over a riff stolen from “Exit.” The room roared. Aron turned red, threw down his gorgeous sunburst Vox Teardrop — an absurdly expensive guitar his parents bought him before he could even play — and stormed upstairs.
Things began to snowball. Kids at the school drinking fountain hummed my guitar riffs. Laura Bloomenthal finally noticed me. And then: incredible news. Mrs. Perhofsky called my house to ask if our band would perform for residents of the Saint Paul Cerebral Palsy Center. $25 plus unlimited orange pop and Fritos. I was ecstatic — and terrified. I had a problem with inappropriate laughter. Not cruelty — just a tendency to laugh when I wasn’t supposed to. A waitress once spilled pancakes at Uncle John’s Pancake House, and I burst out laughing for no good reason. I worried this gig might trigger the same response.
We practiced nonstop: our originals, Creedence’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain,” a few Beatles songs. My nerves tightened with every rehearsal.
The center’s cafeteria was huge. We set up our amps and waited. Then the audience poured in — dozens of people reaching toward us, smiling, stomping, yelling with unbounded eagerness. One guy’s head was long and cylindrical, strapped to the back of a metal wheelchair. A pretty teenage girl with no hands drew a beautiful picture with a crayon held between her toes. An older woman with skin so thin I could see every vein greeted us warmly and made us feel at ease. When we started to play, the place exploded. People pounded on tables, shouted, danced and laughed. Andy played better than I’d ever heard him. We all did.
I felt something then I couldn’t name, a sense of having stepped into the world, of finally being part of something important. I was so overwhelmed I almost cried then and there. I probably would have, if I hadn’t been afraid the guys would laugh at me. After our originals and the Creedence numbers, they demanded more. So we played everything again. We cracked open my Beatles songbook and sight-read our way through half its pages.
I didn’t laugh. I didn’t feel the need. Not even close.
Without question, it was the best day of my life so far.
Freedom is like that.
The post How I found freedom in a Passover Seder, an amp and a red Fender Duo-Sonic guitar appeared first on The Forward.
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In a first, President Donald Trump to receive Israel Prize, the country’s top civilian honor
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that President Donald Trump will receive the Israel Prize in 2026, marking the first time the award will be bestowed to a foreign leader.
Trump was informed he had won the prize during a meeting with Netanyahu at his Mar-a–Lago estate as the pair discussed plans to push the ceasefire in Gaza into its second phase, a process that has stalled in recent months.
“For the first time in the history of the State of Israel: The Israel Prize will be awarded to President Trump!,” wrote Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch in a post on X. “This is a historic decision that expresses recognition of President Trump’s extraordinary contribution and lasting impact on the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.”
On a call with Kisch during the meeting, Trump said the award was a “great honor,” adding that to be the “first one outside of Israel is really something.”
While the prize has infrequently been awarded to non-Israeli citizens in its history, including to Indian conductor Zubin Mehta in 1991, Monday’s announcement marked the first time that a foreign leader has received the accolade.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the guidelines for the prize mandate that candidates must be Israeli citizens, with the exception of “candidates for the Israel Prize for Diaspora Jewry and/or for a special contribution to the Jewish people.” Mehta, for example, was music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Speaking beside Trump on Monday at a press conference in Florida amid negotiations for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, Netanyahu said that Trump would receive the award for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people.”
“President Trump has broken so many conventions to the surprise of people, and then they figure out, oh, well, maybe you know, he was right after all,” said Netanyahu. “So we decided to break a convention to or create a new one, and that is to award the Israel Prize, which, in almost our 80 years, we’ve never awarded it to a non-Israeli, and we’re going to award it this year to President Trump.”
Netanyahu added that the award “reflects the overwhelming sentiment of Israelis across the spectrum.”
“They appreciate what you’ve done to help Israel and to help our common battle against the terrorists and those who would destroy our civilization,” continued Netanyahu.
Trump has made no secret of coveting and appreciating prizes, having frequently said that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Netanyahu was among the world leaders, including officials from Pakistan and Cambodia, who nominated Trump for the Nobel. Earlier this month, the international soccer federation FIFA awarded Trump its inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In a first, President Donald Trump to receive Israel Prize, the country’s top civilian honor appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Faces Nationwide Protests Amid Economic Collapse as Israel Voices Support for Demonstrators
Protesters demonstrate against poor economic conditions in Tehran, Iran, with some shopkeepers closing their stores on Dec. 29, 2025, in response to ongoing hardships and fluctuations in the national currency. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Iran on Monday experienced a second straight day of expanding nationwide anti-government protests, with violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces escalating as the country grapples with unprecedented domestic crises amid Israel’s open support for the protesters.
On Sunday, thousands of people joined protests across Tehran as shopkeepers closed their stores and went on strike over the country’s deepening economic crisis and the rial — the nation’s currency — plummeting to record lows, Iranian media reported.
Demonstrators are now calling to extend strikes into a third day on Tuesday, with closures reported across key markets and protests spreading nationwide amid mounting economic pressure and growing calls for regime change.
With public unrest sweeping the nation and disrupting commercial districts, security forces have escalated their crackdown, clashing violently with protesters while firing tear gas at shopkeepers.
In widely circulated social media videos, protesters can be heard chanting slogans such as “Death to the dictator” and “[Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will be toppled this year,” while also calling for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to step down.
Videos sent to Iran International show security forces confronting protesting shopkeepers in central Tehran on Monday, with riot police deployed around the Grand Bazaar and tear gas used on Jomhouri Street near the Hafez underpass. pic.twitter.com/OyhQlyUJaN
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) December 29, 2025
On Monday, Pezeshkian made his first official response to the protests, announcing that government officials had been instructed to engage in talks with community leaders.
“I have instructed the interior minister to hear the legitimate demands of the protesters by engaging in dialogue with their representatives, so the government can fully address the issues and respond responsibly,” the Iranian leader said in a televised speech.
According to Iranian media, Pezeshkian also appointed former economy minister Abdolnaser Hemmati as the new head of the central bank, announcing a leadership change amid growing criticism over the rial’s historic decline and accelerating inflation.
Meanwhile, Israel has openly expressed support for the protests, denouncing the Islamist regime’s ongoing oppression and pointing to the country’s dire economic and social conditions.
“People in Iran are exhausted with the regime and the collapsed economy,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry wrote in a post on its Persian-language X account.
چون اسرائیل همیشه در کنار مردم ایران ایستاده است. https://t.co/KTC6j44Cpr
— اسرائیل به فارسی (@IsraelPersian) December 29, 2025
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also voiced his support for the protesters, saying they deserve a better future and affirming that the international community stands with them.
”The Iranian people have a glorious past, and they can have an even more glorious future. That future depends on every one of you,” Bennett said in a video posted on X.
“So, to all the brave men and women now rising up across your country, all the nations of the free world stand with you in your just struggle. Change is possible, there will be a better Middle East,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the Mossad — Israel’s national intelligence agency — used its X account in Farsi to urge the Iranian people to stand up to the regime, indicating agents would join them in support.
“Let’s come out to the streets together,” the Mossad wrote. “The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are with you in the field as well.”
با هم به خیابان ها بیایید. وقتش رسیده.
ما همراه شما هستیم. نه تنها از راه دور و شفاهی. در میدان نیز همراهتان هستیم.— Mossad Farsi (@MossadSpokesman) December 29, 2025
Iranian authorities warned that anyone accused of disrupting the country’s economic system would face punishment, calling such acts part of a “foreign-backed effort to destabilize the country.”
The Iranian Interior Ministry blamed the growing unrest on “hostile psychological operations,” claiming that foreign exchange fluctuations were driven by “enemy inducements” rather than economic factors, while urging the public to resist outside propaganda.
Iran has been facing a brutal economic and ecological crisis, with crippling pressure on its water and energy resources, forcing the government to take steps to relocate its capital amid mounting economic and foreign sanctions.
#BREAKING A video obtained by Iran International shows security forces shooting directly at protesters in Hamadan on Monday. pic.twitter.com/MiSXcdyrnp
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) December 29, 2025
As the country’s domestic crises deepen, the government has also intensified its internal crackdown.
According to Iran Human Rights Monitor (IHR), a Norway-based NGO that tracks the death penalty in the country, at least 1,791 people have been executed this year, marking a staggering rise from the 993 executions recorded in 2024.
Most of those executed were accused of collaborating with Mossad and aiding covert operations in Iran, such as assassinations and sabotage targeting the country’s nuclear program.
With at least 61 women among those executed, Iran remains the world’s leading executioner on a per capita basis, using capital punishment as a tool of repression, fear, and ideological control.