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Meet the rabbi who is helping bring legal cannabis to New York
(New York Jewish Week) — As New York gears up for a new landscape of legal marijuana, one rabbi will bring his experience retailing weed to help others “squeeze more out of life.”
Rabbi James Kahn is part of a company, “Keep It A 100,” that is one of the first to be licensed to open a cannabis dispensary in the state. When he wasn’t teaching Jewish college students or running chaplaincy services for a Jewish social service agency, he helped run a family-run marijuana business in Washington, D.C. and is the executive director of Liberty Cannabis Cares, the social impact arm of Holistic Industries, a prominent dispensary business in Maryland.
“Suffering is not a mitzvah,” Kahn, who was ordained at Boston’s Hebrew College and has served as the senior Jewish educator at the University of Maryland Hillel, told the New York Jewish Week. “Giving people permission to use cannabis to enjoy and to take time for self care, for healing, for connecting with people, it’s just another tool that Hashem has given us to live better lives.”
Keep It A 100 is one of the 36 winners of the state’s Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) program, which offered the licenses to sell weed to people and nonprofits who had previously been convicted of marijuana-related crimes. New York’s first dispensary, opening Thursday at 750 Broadway in Manhattan’s Astor Place neighborhood, is being run by Housing Works, the HIV/AIDS service organization.
“When done right, cannabis can be a force for good — for individuals and the communities they live in,” Kahn said. “That is my mission.”
Kahn has partnered with Marquis Hayes, a Bronx native and former drug dealer who got out of prison in 2007 and has since become a highly regarded professional chef. He will source the product for Keep It A 100, while Kahn will provide capital and expertise. Their first “retail experience” will be on Long Island.
Rabbi James Kahn, shown with a menorah-shaped bong, saw the benefits of cannabis when his grandfather sought relief from multiple sclerosis. (Courtesy)
“It’s focused on giving licenses to people who have been injured by the war on drugs, who have really worked to not let that injury define them, but have come out of that place and form businesses that were profitable,” Kahn said of the CAURD program. “I wanted to take what I know about how to run a successful and impactful cannabis retail store and share that knowledge with a partner who really deserves this opportunity. I want to make sure he is as successful as possible.”
Kahn does not have a set date for when the dispensary will open, but said that “it will be in a few months.”
Kahn also worked at the Washington, D.C.-area Jewish Social Service Agency. At Liberty Cannabis Care, he works “to make cannabis a force for good in every state we operate in, and in every neighborhood we’re lucky to be a part of,” according to its mission statement.
Other partners in Keep It A 100 include psychotherapist Kim Stetz and experienced Maryland cannabis business owner Christina Betancourt Johnson.
Kahn’s connection to cannabis goes back to his grandfather: When Kahn was a teenager, his mother’s father suffered from “severe” multiple sclerosis and asked Kahn to help him find marijuana.
“He was hesitant to try cannabis because of the stigma that surrounded it,” Kahn said. “He was not a fan of hippies or cannabis. An aide offered him cannabis and it worked. The first bong I ever saw was my grandfather’s.”
Kahn’s father, Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn, was a rabbi during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, where many people were “benefitting from cannabis around that time.”
“[My father] was thinking about it back then,” Kahn said. “There were a lot of folks who were concerned about the stigma and shame that was attached to cannabis. Was cannabis kosher? Not just from the technical standpoint — it is just a plant — but from a moral standpoint.”
In 2011, the family opened the capital’s first medical cannabis dispensary, the Takoma Wellness Center.
Kahn said that he sees his dispensaries as a gathering place for “folks of every kind and background who love cannabis.”
“It’s a place to be seen and to be valued and to get to talk about their favorite plan,” Kahn said. “Marquis is a world-renowned chef and knows how to create this unique experience.”
He added that the dispensary will also offer a delivery service, which will “probably open prior to the retail store.”
He added that while cannabis has not been “at the forefront of the modern Jewish age, the cannabis industry is full of Jews.” A current exhibit at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, “Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis,” also explores the extensive Jewish presence in the weed industry, legal and not.
“Judaism is relevant because it helps us squeeze more out of life,” Kahn said. “It’s helped me use cannabis in a way that I would call sacred.”
Kahn said he is fascinated by the history of cannabis within Judaism, mentioning an archaeological dig site in Tel Arad in Israel, where traces of cannabis were found in the ancient remnants of a Jewish temple.
“This would have created a dense smoke that is responsible for creating a high from cannabis,” Kahn said.
He added that he has had “interesting experiences reading sacred texts while consuming cannabis.”
“All cannabis is medicine,” Kahn said. “The word ‘recreational’ is often seen as less than. We Jews have long known the value of rest, of stopping. That’s at the heart of Shabbat. In order to have holiness, we need to give ourselves the space to experience it.”
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The post Meet the rabbi who is helping bring legal cannabis to New York appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Guinness World Records’ Exclusion of Israel Is ‘Deceptive,’ a Form of False Advertising, Advocacy Group Says
Guinness World Records Day 2025 at Elbtor Mobile in Hamburg, Germany. Photo: Marcus Brandt via Reuters Connect
Guinness World Records is guilty of false advertising for refusing to log the accomplishments of Israelis in its publications, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has complained to the US Federal Trade Commission in a letter demanding that the agency use its authority to stop the allegedly mendacious practice.
GWR annually publishes a Guinness World Records book, commemorating a range of human achievements, from feats of scientific discovery to musical endeavors which yielded massive record sales. However, as previously reported by The Algemeiner, GWR suspended its processing of applications reporting new records achieved in Israel and the Palestinian territories in November 2023, shortly after the war in Gaza started following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
“We are aware of just how sensitive this is at the moment,” GWR, published by the Jim Pattison Group, said in a statement issued earlier this month after the policy excluded an Israel charity’s being recognized for holding the single largest gathering of kidney donors in one place. “We truly do believe in record breaking for everyone, everywhere but unfortunately in the current climate we are not generally processing record applications from the Palestinian Territories or Israel, or where either is given as the attempt location, with the exception of those done in cooperation with a UN humanitarian aid relief agency.”
GWR’s explanation does not change the fact that it is excluding the world’s lone Jewish state from the world community over a war it did not start, the Brandeis Center said in Tuesday’s letter, arguing that, as such, Guinness World Records cannot literally claim to represent all of the world.
“They don’t have a right to deceive their readership and customer base by claiming that it is publishing ‘world records,’” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “We have seen again and again that Israelis are capable of besting the competition and achieving international success. Any so-called ‘world record’ excluding such talented challengers must at a minimum carry an asterisk to disclose that it is not truly a record for the entire world.”
At the least, Marcus charged, GWR should issue refunds to customers, adding, “To the extent that GWR has been deceptively selling mislabeled products to the public, it should provide their money back.”
Notably, GWR accepts hundreds of applications annually from China, a country whose government has reportedly imprisoned more than a million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, in concentration camps. According to leaked documents from inside China, detainees in these camps have been subjected to rape, torture, forced labor, brainwashing, and forced sterilization. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the State Department under both the Trump and Biden administrations have assessed China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.
Israel, by contrast, counts some 2 million Arab Muslims as full citizens in what is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
Chinese residents perform square dance during an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record in Chongqing, China, Nov. 7, 2016. Photo: Oriental Image via Reuters Connect
GWR has also been accused of sending mixed signals about its organization’s purported political neutrality. Its website states that it is “determined to protect the integrity of our records by remaining politically neutral.” However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, GWR “ceased” operations in Russia and Belarus, describing the decision as a “meaningful expression of our support and solidarity.”
It continued, “This means all current business, as well as all open conversations around future business relating to publishing, record consultancy and television productions. We are also exploring how we can prevent advertising across our digital platforms from these regions. We join calls for an end to fighting in Ukraine, and in any country or region where violence and fear preside over diplomacy or peace.”
At the same time, GWR welcomes many other countries in which “violence and fear preside over diplomacy or peace,” the Brandeis Center’s letter noted.
“GWR published the 2014 world record for longest talk show broadcast by a Damascus studio aligned with Bashar al-Assad,” the Brandeis Center said, quoting its letter to the FTC. “That record came not long after the Syrian dictator’s sarin gas attack on the nearby Ghouta suburb of Damascus. More recently, GWR featured an Iranian jump rope record achieved in February 2023 while the Islamic Republic was actively rounding up tens of thousands of participants in the Women, Life, Freedom protests.”
Days after GWR’s policy of excluding Israel received headlines this month, the nonprofit organization StandWithUs sent a letter to members of the Florida State Board of Administration calling on the state of Florida to investigate GWR over its ban on applications from Israel and to ensure that public funds do not support companies engaged in such a “discriminatory policy” against the Jewish state.
StandWithUs Saidoff Law, which carries out legal action for the pro-Israel group, requested that the board investigate GWR and its affiliate Guinness World Records North America regarding the “boycott policy” to see if they should be included on Florida’s official list of “Scrutinized Companies or Other Entities that Boycott Israel” in accordance with Florida law. Guinness World Records North America is registered in Florida as a foreign profit corporation.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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NFL Player Vows to Do Touchdown Dance Invoking Antisemitic Trope
Puka Nacua during a livestream appearance. Photo: Screenshot
Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua promised during a livestream appearance on Wednesday to do a dance following his next touchdown that includes an antisemitic trope.
The 24-year-old professional football player appeared in a livestream with online streamers Adin Ross and N3on. Aside from calling out NFL referees, Nacua learned a dance that Ross taught him. The moves included Ross spinning the football on the ground, flexing, and then leaning in while rubbing your hands together. Nacua performed the touchdown dance, following Ross’s request, and then the Rams player promised to perform it during a game.
Critics online have argued the moves in the dance promote antisemitic stereotypes about the Jewish community, noting the livestream took place mere days after 15 people were murdered in the deadly antisemitic attack against Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia. Dozens of people were also wounded.
Puka Nacua will be doing Adin Ross’s ICONIC JEWISH DANCE for his next touchdown celebration
pic.twitter.com/W2dQL4kSMB
— AdinUpdate (@AdinUpdate) December 17, 2025
Nacua and the NFL have not publicly commented on the offensive touchdown dance. The Rams are playing on Thursday night against the Seattle Seahawks. If Nacua scores a touchdown, viewers will be waiting to see if he performs the antisemitic dance Ross taught him. The Provo, Utah, native, has been described as one of the best receivers in the league.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv Fined by UEFA, Banned From Selling Tickets to Fans for ‘Racist’ Chanting
Soccer Football – UEFA Europa League – Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv – Villa Park, Birmingham, Britain – Nov. 6, 2025, Aston Villa’s Ian Maatsen scores their first goal. Photo: Action Images via Reuters
The Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv has been fined €20,000 ($23,479) by the UEFA and banned from selling tickets to fans for one away match because of “racist and/or discriminatory behavior,” European soccer’s governing body announced on Wednesday.
UEFA said its Control, Ethics, and Disciplinary Body (CEDB) made the decision in relation to behavior displayed by Maccabi fans at a Europa League game against the German club Stuttgart on Dec. 11. Stuttgart won that match 4-1. The CEDB also imposed a ban on Maccabi selling tickets to fans for its next UEFA competition away game, suspended for a probationary period of two years.
Stuttgart police told the German publication Bild last week it was investigating Maccabi fans who allegedly chanted defamatory, anti-Arab slogans at a fan meeting point ahead of the match at the Neckarstadion stadium in Germany. Six Maccabi fans were also detained temporarily and banned from attending the game after repeatedly starting pyrotechnics, according to The Athletic.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from an earlier Europa League match against Aston Villa in the UK on Nov. 6 because of safety concerns. The controversial decision led to intense backlash in and out of the country, and was even criticized by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Maccabi lost that match 2-0.
In November 2024, dozens of Maccabi supporters were violently attacked in the streets of Amsterdam in the Netherlands following the Israeli team’s Europa League game against the Dutch club Ajax. The premeditated and coordinated violence included Maccabi fans being chased with knives and sticks in the streets, run over by cars, physically beaten, and forced by their attackers to say, “Free Palestine.” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” who went “Jew hunting.” Dutch police made more than 60 arrests related to the incident, and last year, five men were sentenced to up to six months in prison for participating in the violence.