Bethany Mandel

Bethany Shondark Mandel^[1] (née Bethany Ann Horowitz) is a conservative American columnist and political and cultural commentator who writes for Deseret News and Ricochet.^[2] She was named one of "36 under 36" by The Jewish Week in 2013, one of the "Forward 50" in 2015,^[3] and one of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's "50 Jews everyone should follow on Twitter" in 2019.^[4]

Mandel was raised by her mother^[1] near Rochester, New York,^[5] at times in poverty^[6] and while receiving government support through "welfare, Medicaid, and food stamps."^[7] Her mother died of lupus when Mandel was 16.^[8] At 18, she changed her name to Bethany Shondark Murphy, taking her mother's maiden name.^[1][6] Her father committed suicide when she was 19,^[6][9] after struggling with an addiction to opioid painkillers.^[10] Mandel graduated from Rutgers University in 2008 with a degree in history and Jewish studies.^[3]

Upon graduation, Mandel moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for Washington Hebrew Congregation while looking for a position in conservative politics.^[1] After reading about the Jay Pritzker Academy near Siem Reap in Cambodia, she wrote and asked to teach at the school, becoming a fifth grade teacher there for a year.^[1]

In 2010, she returned to Washington, D.C. to pursue an Orthodox conversion to Judaism.^[5] she found work as a fundraiser and writer at The Heritage Foundation, and then as a marketer, editor, and blogger for Commentary. Her advocacy for conservative causes led to her being named, by The Jewish Week in 2013, as one of "36 under 36" individuals reinventing Jewish life.^[11]

Since 2013, she has been a freelance writer and commentator while working from home to raise her children.^[12]

In 2023, Mandel co-wrote with Karol Markowicz Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.

On March 14, 2023, during an interview with Briahna Joy-Gray and Roby Soave of Rising, when asked to define the word "woke" in connection to the release of her co-written work Stolen Youth: How Radicals are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, Mandel stumbled repeatedly in attempting to define the word. “So, I mean, woke is, sort of, the idea that, um...This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.”^[13] When pressed further by Joy-Gray to elaborate and provide a working definition of the word, Mandel continued, "So, I mean, woke is...Sort of the idea that, uh, um … I … Woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it...It is sort of the understanding that we need to re-, totally reimagine and re-, re-, redo society in order to create hierarchies of oppression...Sorry, it’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.”^[14] The moment went viral across multiple platforms.

On March 15, the day following the interview, Mandel wrote an op-ed for Newsweek, stating that she was rattled by comments made by host Briahna Joy-Gray that were, “demeaning to parents in general in colorful and nasty terms”.^[15] Mandel went on to provide a definition of woke as, "a radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the end point, enforced by an angry mob."^[15] Mandel went on to frame the exchange and aftermath as a "teachable moment" for her children, explaining to them how people were criticizing her on the internet, how it impacted her feelings and mental health, and how it was both important and healthy to experience those feelings.^[15]

Mandel edits the children's book series "Heroes of Liberty," which consists of biographies of right-wing cultural and political figures marketed to conservative families. The books in this series avoid mention of issues that could cause discomfort to conservative parents, such as LGBT identities or the out-of-wedlock birth of Alexander Hamilton.^[16]

In January 2022, a Facebook advertising account related to Heroes of Liberty was banned for violating the social network's "Low Quality or Disruptive Content" policy. It was later restored, and a Facebook spokesman wrote that the ban had been the result of a "mistake". There had been backlash on social media, as well as from prominent Conservative commentators and politicians such as Senator Ted Cruz.^[17][18] In a Heroes of Liberty video launched in February 2021, Mandel accuses the Scholastic Corporation of indoctrinating children by publishing books with themes concerning racism, LGBTQ identities and general anti-Americanism, marketing such books through school book fairs to children from families that would not intentionally purchase books with such content.^[19]

In February 2024, Mandel filed to run for the 4th district seat on the Montgomery County school board.^[20] Mandel is currently a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the school board, claiming she was wrongly denied access to a school board meeting as a member of the media.^[21] She says that if elected, she would recuse herself from any board business related to this suit.^[22]

Mandel's platform states its goals include a "refocus on academics," the return of school resource officers over community engagement officers, and opening up school-based sports and extracurricular activities to homeschooled and private-schooled children.^[23]

She received 23.4% of the vote, coming in third place (out of three candidates), and was not elected.^[24]

In 2015, Mandel spoke publicly against the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Highland Park, New Jersey, arguing that without sufficient support to find good jobs, these refugees might become radicalized.^[25][26][27] In 2021, she criticized the Biden administration for not doing more to speedily resettle Afghan refugees in the U.S.^[28]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Mandel was outspoken in her opposition to the continuation of lockdowns after the initial month. In one tweet, she said:^[29]

You can call me a Grandma killer. I'm not sacrificing my home, food on the table, all of our docs and dentists, every form of pleasure (museums, zoos, restaurants), all my kids' teachers in order to make other people comfortable. If you want to stay locked down, do. I'm not.

Mandel opposes mask mandates for children, a position she states in her opinion columns and on Twitter.^[16]

Mandel was born to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father and sought out Rabbi Barry Freundel for an Orthodox conversion that would make her Jewish status universally recognized.^[5] She has also said that she left the Reform movement in which she originally affiliated because of its close association with progressive and liberal politics.^[30]

She completed her conversion in 2011.^[3] In 2014, she learned that Freundel had filmed her naked while preparing her for conversion.^[5][31] She wrote an article entitled "The Convert Bill of Rights" that went viral, making her a spokeswoman for the many victims of the Freundel scandal. She served on a committee appointed by the Rabbinical Council of America to suggest safeguards against future abuses in the conversion process.^[32] For this work, the Forward named her one of the "Forward 50" in 2015,^[33] and the Rutgers University Hillel honored her with its Young Alumni Award at its 2016 Annual Gala.^[34] She has also said that it became clear to her that the RCA did not want to enact meaningful changes to its conversion program, that she resigned from the committee when she understood this, and that the experience left her disenchanted with Orthodoxy as a whole. As a consequence, she and her husband stopped participating in Orthodox Jewish institutions, such as synagogues and schools,^[6] before finding a supportive synagogue in Kemp Mill several years later.^[30]

She is married to Seth Mandel and is the mother of six children.^[2]