Haas was born to a
Jewish family in
Reckendorf, Bavaria, one of nine children including brothers Charles A. (b. 1825) and Samuel (b. 1827), and sisters Flora, Johanna, Sophia, Babete, Lena, and Anna. He immigrated to New York at the age of 15 with his brothers where they peddled notions saving money to travel West. The brothers first worked as miners and seeing that there was more money in retailing began to sell goods to miners. In 1868, he moved to
San Francisco,
California and co-founded
Loupe & Haas with his brother Charles and Leopold Loupe. In 1875, Loupe retired and their cousin William Haas (1849–1916) joined the firm which was renamed
Haas Brothers. In 1875, there was a banking crisis in California due to a collapse in mining revenues and numerous banks closed including the
Bank of California and
Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles (founded by fellow Reckendorf-native
Isaias W. Hellman whose brother,
Herman W. Hellman was a partner with Kalman's cousin Abraham in
Hellman, Haas and Company). As
Haas Brothers was financially strong and the Hellman and Haas families were intertwined, Kalman announced that Farmers and Merchants Bank depositors could either redeem or transfer their accounts to
Haas Brothers stores. The panic subsided and Kalman is widely credited with calming a moment that could have been disastrous; and both the Hellman and Haas families reaped the benefits of their efforts once the economy was restored. In 1886, he moved to New York where he served as the company's purchasing agent leaving the day-to-day operations to his cousin William as president and sons-in-law Leopold Klau and Carl Klau. Haas served as a director of the
Mutual Alliance Trust Company.{{Citation| date=June 29, 1902| title=Mutual Alliance Trust Co.| work=The New York Times| location =New York | page = 35 ==Personal life==