I haven’t been very active on my blog lately. I’ve been too preoccupied with many different projects and things I’ve been working on, but since I’ve heard the news I’ve had the urge to write this post.
On Tuesday, May 25th 2021, the Oracle community lost a great person: Joel R. Kallman. I got the news through this tweet and it took me quite a few seconds to figure out what I was seeing, until it sank in. I was heart broken.
I felt the need to write this post about Joel because he was really a special guy and I had to share this for his memory and for myself. So here is a little bit about the man I met and knew.
I don’t really remember when I met Joel for the first time, I think it was when he came to Israel in 2013 for the Israeli Oracle Users Group (ilOUG) Tech Days conference. Since then, he was one of the people I enjoyed meeting the most when going to conferences, mainly Oracle Open World. I remember long chats about so many things when we accidentally met in the street of San Francisco, about technology, Israel, religion, and much more.
I was supposed to meet Joel at GLOC20, the Great Lakes Oracle Conference which takes place every year in May in Cleveland, OH, but obviously in 2020 it was cancelled so I didn’t have the chance.
In any case, I’d like to share a story of our last encounter, which I think sums up pretty well the man he was.
It started in early January 2020 with an out of the blue e-mail from Joel with the intriguing title: “Need your help – secretly”. In the mail he told me that he is traveling to Israel to deliver a keynote for ilOUG Tech Days 2020 conference (luckily, ilOUG Tech Days takes place in January, so it took place before the world shut down, and was the last in-person conference for many speakers in the Oracle world).
What he wanted to do is to open the session with a few sentences in Hebrew and he needed help with translation and learning how to pronounce the words. As you might know, I moved to Canada from Israel in 2015, so I wasn’t part of ilOUG anymore. He said he felt comfortable asking this of me, and since I wasn’t in Israel, he could keep it secret from everyone over there.
I immediately agreed and provided everything he needed: the translation (with phonetic explanation on how to pronounce the words), and 2 audio files (one in normal speed and one with slow pronunciation so he can really understand how to say each word).
His response was full of excitement. This is what he wrote to me:
“Wow. This took a lot of time and work to put this together. I don’t know how I could ever thank you.
This is 1000% perfect. It’s exactly what I needed – everything is perfect – the Hebrew, the phonetic spelling, and the slow and fast recordings. You should do this for a living!
I won’t use this if I don’t get enough time to practice. But I’ll download this to my phone and practice it on my flights.
Thanks again for your wonderful help. I owe you. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
I was really happy to help and was wondering if he was actually going to go through with it. So a day before his talk, I contacted Oren, one of the conference organizers with a simple and unclear request: “Can you do me a favor and record the beginning of Joel’s session tomorrow? I’ll explain after”. So without knowing why, he recorded it for me. And I’m so grateful he did, because now I can share it with all of you (below).
It’s difficult to understand, especially if you don’t speak Hebrew ;-), but even if you do. What he says there is: “Good morning and welcome. My name is Joel Kallman and I’m one of the creators of APEX in Oracle. A few people suggested that I present entirely in Hebrew, do you agree? Let’s begin”.
He did a really good job for someone who doesn’t speak Hebrew, and as you can hear, the audience was both impressed and amused.
Here is the video:
I feel like this story shows the great person he was, creative, loves people, enjoys good laughs and amazing experiences, and this is how I’m going to remember him.
I can’t believe you’re gone, Joel. Rest in Peace, we will all miss you.
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