When Your Family, Friends, and Therapist Are No Help, Who You Gonna Call?

You all know the shtick with the traditional Magic 8-Ball: You ask it a question, you shake it, and it reveals an answer in variations of “yes” or “no,” with an occasional non-committal response, or a demand that you try later. It’s good fun, and now there’s going to be a Jewish-style version of it.

The new Jewish Wisdom Ball is similar: You ask, you shake, and you get one of 20 (!) possible answers. However, none of them are direct, or even helpful in the expected sense. For example, nearly half of the responses are in the form of questions (e.g. “You even need to ask?”), which sounds about right. Others, like “Feh,” or, “Better You Shouldn’t Ask,” are philosophical sort of prompts.

The project to release the Jewish Wisdom Ball on Kickstarter is also a pre-order campaign, and for $18 you can get one sometime in December, before the end of Hannukah. But it’s also a gift for any point in Jewish existence; after all, where the number 8 should be on the ball is the Hebrew word “Chai,” meaning life.

“If you use ‘magic’ or the number 8 in any proximity to the word ball you’ll get sued by Mattel,” explained the mastermind behind this project, Rami Genauer. (No one tell the toy empire that the letters in Chai symbolically also represent the number 18— too close for comfort.)

Genauer, 35, is a D.C.-based sports data analyst and former journalist who’s been holding on to the idea for a Jewish version of the Magic 8-Ball for about a decade. He even tried to sell it to Jewish toy manufacturers, who said it was too niche, even for them. And so, enter the age of crowd-funding.

This campaign got off to a rocky start when Genauer created Facebook ads to spread the word. Needing a demographic to target, he selected Facebook users that are interested in Judaism. It turns out that a lot of people who claim this on Facebook are apparently anti-Semitic, as Genauer found himself constantly deleting images of Hitler and other offensive messages that were sent his way through the campaign.

“I was actively being told that I should be exterminated,” Genauer told me, “which is not what you’re looking for in an ad campaign.”

He eventually solved the problem by filtering out users who identified as “very conservative,” and says that it was worth potentially losing Jewish Trump supporters when the Kickstarter finally took off: this week, it finally hit its first goal of $10,000.

Genauer thinks that this project is more than a gag gift, but perhaps a better alternative to the Magic 8-Ball. “You don’t need magic to be wise in Jewish culture,” he observed. “There’s nothing magical about scholarship or study or even life experience.”

He also claims that the Wisdom Ball’s vague responses actually enhance its use because they’re subject to interpretation, and therefore offer a more personal experience than a simple yes or no. What does “If that’s what you want,” Or “Halevai” (“If only”) mean to any given person on any given day? You can take the advice that you need to most.

“Who are we to have a little Magic 8-Ball telling us what to do with our lives?,” Genauer posited.

Just in case, he also added: “[The Jewish Wisdom Ball is] not a licensed therapist, lawyer, doctor. Anything you ask it comes subject to your own risk. Don’t sue me, please.”

There is almost a week left to donate, and pre-order a Jewish Wisdom Ball. On the fence? Ask a Magic 8 Ball if you should replace it with something more ethnic. Unlike with its successor, you might actually get a “yes.”