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He’Brew maker Shmaltz Brewing relaunches with new owner: a rabbinical student
(JTA) — It seemed like the last keg had been tapped for Shmaltz Brewing Company, until a rabbi-in-training stepped in for a Jewish renewal project.
The Jewish craft beer label, best known for its He’Brew: The Chosen Beer line of drinks, shut down last year after 25 years when its founder, Jeremy Cowan, said he wanted to focus on his other businesses. But now it’s been sold to a new owner: Jesse Epstein, a 26-year-old Reform rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College who first got into home brewing during the COVID-19 pandemic and began looking for ways to work his love for beer into his rabbinical pursuits.
“I started forming in the back of my mind this idea for a Jewish brewery: how to combine these two big passions,” Epstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
When he heard that Cowan was winding down Shmaltz, Epstein jumped at the chance to acquire the closest thing the beer world had to a storied Jewish brand — even though he has two-and-a-half years left of school and is currently a rabbinic intern at Temple Sinai of Saratoga Springs, New York.
“I could have waited to do this until after I was ordained and then I’d have more time on my hands, but I didn’t want to lose the opportunity,” Epstein said, declining to say how much he paid for the brand. Cowan agreed to the proposal, and remains at the company as a minority owner and consultant.
Founded in San Francisco in 1996 but now based in Clifton Park, New York, Shmaltz spent 25 years as the king of Jewish craft beer, with shtick-y brews like David’s Slingshot Hoppy Summer Lager, a jelly donut-flavored Hanukkah ale, and a Babka Loves Rugelach stout (brewed with chocolate, cinnamon and raisins). During its run it attained some level of notoriety and robust sales, with Cowan releasing a memoir, “Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah,” in 2010. Last year, after announcing he would close up shop, Cowan released an Exodus Ale as a swan song.
Epstein’s aims are different. As a rabbinical student wrestling with surveys showing a shrinking interest in Reform and Conservative affiliations among American Jews, he says his goal with Shmaltz is to use beer as a vehicle for rethinking the idea of a synagogue, and of Jewish communal gathering spaces.
“What about our Jewish values can be used to inform our food practices?” he asks. “How, through beer, can we embrace the values of welcoming in the stranger, freeing the captive, opening the eyes of the blind?”
Jesse Epstein (center), a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, is the new owner of Shmaltz Brewing Company. (Courtesy of Jesse Epstein)
The revamped Shmaltz, working for now with an all-volunteer staff, is making Jewish practice and ritual as much a part of its brand as the shtick. Its first year under Epstein’s ownership will consist of a series of pop-up events in partnership with various Jewish groups, starting with a Dec. 17 Hanukkah launch party with Brooklyn Jews. (The events will mostly take place in New York, though Epstein may expand into other Northeast locations.)
At these gatherings, Epstein says, attendees will do the kinds of activities they might normally come to synagogue for: “Build community, do justice, look at a text, but over a pint of beer.” He sees Shmaltz as a peer of Jewish young-adult gathering projects such as Moishe House, OneTable and Base. But he says it will rely on a for-profit business model rather than institutional Jewish support.
Initially Epstein will draw from Shmaltz’s leftover inventory for the actual beers on hand at the pop-ups, and he is holding off on new products and distribution. But he hopes eventually to start brewing his own selections, which are decidedly more Talmudic in inspiration than the label’s previous offerings: He envisions a Purim-themed beer named “Shushan Beer-a” (a play on the first line of the Megillah, the scroll Jews read from on the holiday) and, ultimately, beers inspired by each of the weekly Torah portions. The brand’s labels will now include a Jewish blessing for beer, in Hebrew and English.
Ultimately, Epstein says, he would love to run Shmaltz full-time: “I can really foresee it becoming my rabbinate.”
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The post He’Brew maker Shmaltz Brewing relaunches with new owner: a rabbinical student appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.
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Lebanon Close to Completing Disarmament of Hezbollah South of Litani River, Says PM
FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to journalists at the government headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, December 3, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
Lebanon is close to completing the disarmament of Hezbollah south of the Litani River, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Saturday, as the country races to fulfil a key demand of its ceasefire with Israel before a year-end deadline.
The US-backed ceasefire, agreed in November 2024, ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and required the disarmament of the Iran-aligned terrorirst group, starting in areas south of the river adjacent to Israel.
Lebanese authorities, led by President Joseph Aoun and Salam, tasked the US-backed Lebanese army on August 5 with devising a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year.
“Prime Minister Salam affirmed that the first phase of the weapons consolidation plan related to the area south of the Litani River is only days away from completion,” a statement from his office said.
“The state is ready to move on to the second phase – namely (confiscating weapons) north of the Litani River – based on the plan prepared by the Lebanese army pursuant to a mandate from the government,” Salam added.
The statement came after Salam held talks with Simon Karam, Lebanon’s top civilian negotiator on a committee overseeing the Hezbollah-Israel truce.
Since the ceasefire, the sides have regularly accused each other of violations, with Israel questioning the Lebanese army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes have increasingly targeted Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and even in the capital.
Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim group, has tried to resist the pressure – from its mainly Christian and Sunni Muslim opponents in Lebanon as well as from the US and Saudi Arabia – to disarm, saying it would be a mistake while Israel continues its air strikes on the country.
Israel has publicly urged Lebanese authorities to fulfil the conditions of the truce, saying it will act “as necessary” if Lebanon fails to take steps against Hezbollah.