Dear Revealer readers,

Recently, a friend posted a picture to Instagram from a Zoom meeting she attended with Barbra Streisand. My friend and the mega-celebrity were participating in a “Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris” virtual event, one of several similar web meetings since Harris announced her intention to run for president in July. The first such gathering was “Black Women for Harris,” and it was wildly successful. Within a week, several other groups hosted similar Zoom calls with astounding attendance numbers, including “Black Men for Harris,” “White Women for Harris” and “Latinas for Harris.” As these meetings multiplied, a few people who I follow on social media reported that the “Evangelicals for Harris” call featured plenty of people who want to ensure Harris’s victory, but that the group could not be counted on to affirm queer evangelicals. And so, the number of Zoom groups increased even more, including a “Progressives for Harris” gathering, a “Latter-Day Saints for Harris” meeting, and a “Christians for Harris” call.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

The momentum to elect Harris feels exceptionally electric. People who had been fine enough with Biden seem noticeably enthusiastic about Harris, like a bolt of new energy surges through them. And they are taking on the cause of electing the first female president at a time when the country faces challenges both massive and mundane. Indeed, we are embarking on a fall that could be profoundly chaotic. Between protests against the war in Gaza to concerns over maintaining an uncompromised electoral system, Americans are facing a fall full of significant issues and choices. And we will be confronting those issues as we also deal with the country’s everyday challenges.

The Revealer’s September issue is about the fall, a season of new school years, new election results, new trends, and, for some, new hope. The issue explores concerns on the national political stage as well as those at more local, everyday levels. Our September issue opens by taking a look at the new school year with “Hasidic Yeshivas and Children’s Rights,” where Dena Davis explores Hasidic schools in New York that fail to educate boys in English and secular subjects, thereby making it difficult for them to get jobs and leave their communities as adults. From there we turn to a new trend among Gen Z and young Millennials in “The Coquette Catholic Trend,” where Lauren Griffin considers how social media is transforming religion and reflects on young women who have embraced “traditional” Catholic aesthetics and have formed sizable social media communities. After that, in “Winning the Religious Marketplace,” Miguel Petrosky reviews the book The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People and considers how today’s rightwing conspiracy theories fill a need for many people that was formerly attributable to religion. Then, while thinking about the comingling of religion and politics, in “Mainline Protestants and Christian Nationalism,” an excerpt from Baptizing America, Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood contend that evangelicals alone are not to be blamed for the rise in Christian nationalism and suggest that mainline Protestants also bear responsibility. Next, with the Jewish High Holy Days on the horizon this fall, in “A Cantor and an Adult Bat Mitzvah Student Meet in a Bar,” Helene Meyers reviews the new film Between the Temples and reflects on the film’s unique contributions to movies about American Jews. And, in “Public Schools, Religion, and Race,” Leslie Ribovich returns our focus to schools with an excerpt from her book Without a Prayer: Religion and Race in New York City Public Schools, and reflects on state-enforced racial integration and the prohibition against school prayer as two intermingled phenomena with long-lasting consequences.

The September issue also includes the 50th episode of the Revealer podcast! We are thrilled to reach this milestone and to know our podcast is reaching so many listeners. For our 50^th episode, “Jewish Solidarity with the Pro-Palestine Protests,” Oren Kroll-Zeldin joins us to discuss American Jews who participate in activism to support justice for Palestinians. We explore how activists infuse Jewish teachings and customs into their pro-Palestinian protests, why the visible presence of Jews at the college encampments this spring was crucial, and what to expect this fall as students return to campus and as the situation in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank is far from resolved. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This fall is a momentous one. In November, we may elect the first female president of the United States. We might also face election chaos if people loyal to Donald Trump refuse to certify the results. The threat of more political violence like January 6 looms over us. For now, we must educate ourselves, our friends, our families, and our neighbors. And each of us must find a part to play to ensure the United States has a healthy, functioning democracy.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.

P.S. We are publishing The Revealer’s 2024 special issue, “The Threat of Christian Nationalism” the first week of October and you won’t want to miss it!