Hey GOLDA gang!

Passover comes to a close Sunday at sundown, and Jews all over the world will very literally, and excitedly, break bread. Moroccan Jews do it best, with a festival known as Mimouna, where families gather together for delicious Mufleta crepes slathered in all sorts of toppings.   

But carbs aren’t the only thing being celebrated this Sunday. It’s 4/20, aka the weed holiday, and you better believe GOLDA has a Jewish angle for you. 

Today I’m talking with Will Cohen and Ben Kraim of Tokin’ Jew, the extremely clever cannabis brand inspired by their love of Jewish culture. Will founded Tokin’ Jew in 2020 with novelty products and a popular Instagram account, and Ben joined last year to scale the business. Along the way they created a loyal community of Jews who connect to their light-hearted and welcoming approach not just to cannabis, but to Judaism. 

We talk about their new line of kosher edibles, how they decide what’s too far when creating Jewish-inspired paraphernalia, and whether 4/20 is still even a thing now that cannabis culture has become legalized and more mainstream.

Here’s my conversation with the Tokin’ Jews themselves, Will and Ben.

Tell me about the genesis of Tokin’ Jew, which in many ways started as a lark but is now a full-fledged business. 

Will: I had the idea for Tokin’ Jews when I was in college. It was Hanukkah, and each night I made a concerted effort to go light the menorah with a different one of my Jewish friends around campus. And I remember one of the nights I had just lit the menorah, and then I sparked a joint, and I'm staring at the menorah, thinking, why can't I smoke my menorah?

I'm a Jew. I'm trying to optimize my life in any capacity. It's all about efficiency over here. So with that, I created the first ever product for Tokin’ Jew, which was the joint menorah. You put joints in and you smoke it on the bottom. And obviously that's a joke: There are nine joints. You're not smoking that all at once.

But what came of it was the idea behind all of this, which is this intersection of cannabis and Judaism. Both of these identities have rituals that are part of them, and this was such a cool way to bring them together. My friend at the time came up with the name Tokin’ Jew. And once you get it, you get it. It’s this little club.

We started with an Instagram, which was mostly a meme account, and we reached out to a whole bunch of businesses with this one product. Slowly but surely I realized there was something here, that this thing had legs. So I continued to build out the product line with accessories and paraphernalia. Then Ben joined, and that’s what’s really taken it to the next level as a business. We’ve also really doubled down on building a community through Instagram, and fostering the community to interact with each other.

Let’s talk about your new line of edibles, Tokin’ Chews, which are kosher. I’m curious why you decided to make them kosher, and also to hear a little about the process of getting kosher certification for weed gummies.

Ben: I'm modern Orthodox. I grew up knowing a lot regarding kashrut. I'm not super religious now, but you just don't forget that stuff. And I know that regardless of levels of observance, all kinds of Jews really do love indulging in cannabis.

Everything is a conversation or an argument in Judaism, that's part of the religion. So I'm sure someone out there will be like, “Well, actually, according to this, it's not…” but more so than not, cannabis is allowed in Judaism. Smoking isn't allowed on Shabbat and holidays, but edibles, so long as they're kosher, are more or less accepted. 

So we're starting this cannabis brand, and we're already in a tiny niche within a niche: we're selling edibles to Jews, one of the smallest religions, and then just to Jews who smoke weed. Are we going to make it for just Jews who smoke weed who aren’t religious? That would be so silly. If this is going to be a Jewish brand, we want to give access to all Jews. 

And so we made this firm decision that our edibles were going to be kosher. It was definitely a process. I have never made a kosher product before, and neither has Will. It was hard to find a rabbi to put their stamp of approval on a cannabis product. We reached out to the OU, and we reached out to some of the standard kashrut organizations, and a lot of them are still kind of in the olden days, thinking that cannabis is a drug and stuff like that. 

We came across this one Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Cohen, who is a super great guy. He has his own story about opening his eyes to cannabis when his son was sick, and he just saw beauty and light in cannabis and what it could do for people. So he decided to start issuing kashrut to cannabis products. He met us, we hit it off, and he gave us our kashrut certification. 

On the Token Chews website you feature testimonials from customers, and there’s someone who says they keep kosher and never could imagine they would find a gummy that works for them. That must be so meaningful, especially since you started out with the jokey idea of a menorah you could smoke and now you’re basically serving a community that would otherwise be left out of the market. 

Will: There's always been this deep association between Jews and cannabis. There’s plenty of reasons why that exists. There’s historical evidence, and there’s thoughts on Judaism as the religion of curiosity and the idea that weed kind of opens up your third eye. And at Tokin’ Jew we use comedy as a way to bring people in, but it's way deeper than that. I think that's what we're trying to explore in this next phase: how do we bring education into it? How do we bring community and events into it? 

So you sell items like a dreidel grinder, matzah patterned rolling papers, and a pickle pipe. But then there are also products that veer into sacred objects—you have the shofar pipe, you have the yarmulke with a hidden joint holder. I'm curious about two things: how you decide what products you want to make, and how you figure out where the line is, and what is too far. 

Will: We can definitely cross the line. Sometimes we cross the line on Instagram posts, and you just delete them. I think that's what keeps people on their toes, and that's kind of what people love about us too. You don't imagine a rabbi showing up on your Instagram feed ripping a fully packed bong. 

Ben and I have an interesting history. He grew up modern Orthodox. I grew up Reform and culturally very Jewish, but not religiously Jewish. He's teaching me things every single day. It's constantly a conversation as to whether we feel like something toes the line. But also, the best part of Tokin’ Jew is the community and how they are willing to help and communicate with us. So we often do Instagram polls where we'll say, “Okay, what about this idea, or this idea?” And people will be respond “yes,” or “absolutely not, you cannot do that.” It's a constant struggle between what we can do and what we feel like crosses the line.

Ben: I think that is what Judaism is. That’s literally Gemara: “This rabbi says it’s okay, this rabbi says it’s not.” A kippah can fall on the floor. You don't kiss it when you pick it up. It's not holy. God's name isn't in the yarmulke. It's just a thing. A menorah isn't holy. We're not putting God's name in things, we’re just making just things that look like other things. Emotionally, it might feel like a shofar pipe is sacrilegious, or whatever word you want to use. I beg to say that it's okay, but people can disagree. That's the beauty of this religion.

You have this great line on your About Us page: “We take pride in cultivating a new type of Jewish community, those who find their identity through humor culture and not taking themselves too seriously.” And that, to me, transcends cannabis. Oh, I just noticed the challah cover that says “Baked.” That's really good. 

Ben: That’s actually my favorite product. 

So what you guys are doing is sort of opening up a universe for people who find their Jewish identity through, as you say, humor and almost like a subversiveness. But that brings me to my next question, which is that since you started this a few years ago, the landscape has shifted pretty dramatically for cannabis and these types of products. Is all of this still subversive or counter-cultural the way it once was, now that weed is normalized and legalized? I wanted to talk to you in advance of 4/20 and then I was thinking, “Is 4/20 even like a thing anymore?”

Ben: 4/20 is definitely a thing. And whether it's subversive or countercultural the way it used to be, probably not. But that's in our best interest. I don't think people who smoked cannabis really ever wanted that. The goal was to get here, and we're not there yet, but we're closer. It’s still federally illegal. There are still people who are in prison right now with life sentences for non-violent cannabis offenses, which is absolutely psychotic.

In the context of Tokin’ Jew, it's definitely still more subversive in the Jewish world. But I think, what the name Tokin’ Jew says without having to say too much is that this is a chill community without all of the traumatic parts that may have scared you away from Judaism in the first place. Whether you had super strict parents who would yell at you in shul for not paying attention, or a super strict teacher in Hebrew School or yeshiva, or just this authoritarian attitude that scared you away from the religion. 

There's a lot of people who, with time, or life, or experiences, or October 7, suddenly feel like they need to find their way back to Judaism, because it's kind of like this safe haven. They don't have to worry what a friend is thinking, or that they're going to have these microaggressions stemming from antisemitism. They just want to be surrounded by people they could feel safe with. And to say these are Jews who embrace weed or just light-hearted culture, it's just a very safe place for a lot of people. 

While I'd love to take credit, or for Will to take credit, and say we knew this from the beginning, we're learning a lot about what we are as we continue to grow. And our audience helps us with that. It’s like we accidentally became a kiruv thing. These Jews are just like, coming home, and they're like, “This is our community. And we're like, “Whoa, okay. We can be that for you.” 

And because of that, we're trying to put more education into our content, and give a little bit of spiritual knowledge about this cool element of a holiday or something. Because high people like to learn too. They like to be like, “Whoa, that’s super cool. I never looked at it that way.” And so we're trying to be more than just memes and silly products. We're trying to be a house of all sorts of light-hearted Judaism. And I think it's working.

GOLDA’s Tokin’ Jew Picks

Baked Challah Cover

Jewish Food Grinder Bundle

Bubbe Sells W**d Tote

Pickle Pipe

Passionfruit Guava Tokin’ Chews

Thanks to Will and Ben for chatting with GOLDA as they prepare for this weekend’s festivities. 

I’ll see you next week with more GOLDA goodies in your inbox. 

Stay GOLDA, 

Stephanie