
Bethany Mandel is a contributing writer for Deseret News and is a home-schooling, stay-at-home mother of six. She is the co-author of “Stolen Youth” and an editor for the patriotic children’s book series “Heroes of Liberty.”

Bethany Mandel is a contributing writer for Deseret News and is a home-schooling, stay-at-home mother of six. She is the co-author of “Stolen Youth” and an editor for the patriotic children’s book series “Heroes of Liberty.”
“On social media, it seems that while not all Donald Trump supporters are anti-Semites, many of the vocal and vicious anti-Semites seem to be Donald Trump supporters.” That’s what Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and writer often accused of climbing into the pockets of “The Jews,” told me recently. The widespread anti-Semitism of Trump’s fans…
Recently a friend explained why she planned to register to vote for the first time in order to place her ballot for Donald Trump: “He’s good for the Jews.” No, he isn’t. Almost all American Jews know the story of how their family came to America. For many — usually the descendants of Eastern European…
Faigy Mayer took her own life on July 20, . Despite its geographical proximity to her birthplace, she was light years from her roots. Faigy was born into a Hasidic family in Brooklyn and didn’t mince words about her former life in what amounted to a suicide note posthumously published soon after her death. In…
Last year I discovered that my rabbi, Barry Freundel, filmed me naked while I was in the mikveh bathroom preparing to convert (during a “practice dunk”) and while converting to Judaism. After outrage and sorrow, I felt fear. Fear for the integrity of my conversion with his name at the top of my documents. At…
I follow the Barry Freundel case quite closely, closer than most. I have a : I’m a confirmed victim (though the videos he took of me inside the preparation room at the mikveh was recorded outside the statute of limitations). When news broke yesterday of a defense memo I immediately got my hands on an…
Not unsurprisingly, given that I’m a victim, I’ve read almost everything printed about the Barry Freundel case since it first broke back in October. I have made myself available for interviews not because I want to be known as the woman whose rabbi taped her naked, but because I think it’s important for reporters to…
This week actress Mayim Bialik, wrote a forceful post, on Jewish parenting site Kveller, in favor of breastfeeding after a Similac commercial about the “Mommy Wars” went viral. I more or less agreed with her pro-nursing arguments, being a pregnant and nursing mother to a toddler myself, but did see why so many accused her…
אין דעם קאַפּיטל וועט איר הערן וועגן דעם ערשטן מאָל וואָס משהלע אַלפֿאָנסאָ האָט געטראָגן אַ יאַרמלקע אויף דער באַן.
הײַיאָר האָט מען אָפּגעגעבן כּבֿוד די ייִדישע פּאַרשױנען פֿונעם פֿאָלקלאָר פֿון דער אָרטיקער קהילה.
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