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Who is Bethany Mandel? Writer shares 'disgusting' disposable mask pic, sparks debate

Writer Bethany Mandel shared pictures of a dirty disposable mask, questioning 'progressives' for 'scaring' their children into wearing them

Bethany Mandel, a Twitter user, tweeted a photo of a filthy disposable mask, which sparked a firestorm of discussion on the social media site. On Thursday, August 5, Bethany shared two photos of a disposal mask with yellow spots, making it appear infected. “This mask is like this after one day,” she said in the description of her Instagram photo.

Masks are still mandatory to wear in the United States. In March, after Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced their plans to allow businesses to reopen at full capacity and lift mask mandates, President Joe Biden expressed his views, calling the moves a “big mistake.”

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Mandel, on Thursday, had posted another tweet before uploading the image of what looked like a filthy mask, in which she questioned “progressives” for “scaring” their children into wearing dirty masks for lengthy periods of time, backing up her claim with a slew of facts. "Related: How strange it is that progressives see scaring their children into wearing dirty, bacteria-filled cloth on their faces for 8-9 hours a day without complaint as evidence of their amazing parenting," she wrote before posting two pictures of a dirty mask, which most of Twitter has not taken well.

Who is Bethany Mandel?

Bethany S Mandel, 35, is a freelance writer and a stay-at-home mom. She writes for the publication Tablet on politics, culture, and Jewish problems from a "political conservative perspective." She also works as a contributing writer for Desert News and is an editor at Ricochet, according to the details on her Twitter bio. She has almost 82,000 Twitter followers under the username @bethanyshondark.

Her bio also reads mentions "Jewish Charlotte Mason homeschooling". Charlotte Mason homeschooling is a popular method of education named after the twentieth-century British educator and often seen as an alternative to Montessori. Writing in her blog, Mandel says, "This is not school at home." "I have spent years reading and chewing over educational philosophy and best practices, and I spent a year teaching fifth grade (albeit over a decade ago now). You are not schooling at home, and you are not going to be Pinterest-perfect at this. That is not the aim. The aim here is survival and enrichment." She also has a YouTube channel for the same, which has 781 subscribers.

According to her LinkedIn account, Mandel is a Rutgers alum who studied BA History and Jewish Studies from 2005-2008. She was a star student who was awarded the Alexander and Ruth Seaman Endowed scholarship from the Jewish Studies Department in Spring 2007 and the Rudolph and Mary Solomon Klein Student Award for 2008 for academic achievement. Additionally awarded the Frances Stafford Peshine scholarship and the Livingston College Scholarship Award for academic excellence by Rutgers School of Arts and Science. Her freelance articles have appeared in CNN, the New York Post, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Times of Israel among many others.

Mandel's Twitter bio also states that she is married to Seth Mandel, an executive editor at the Washington Examiner Magazine, who formerly worked for the New York Post and Commentary, among other publications. The couple has both said that they are proud parents of four Jewish children. "Father of the five Irishest Jewish kids on earth," Seth writes on his Twitter handle, where he also calls Bethany his "better half".

What did Bethany Mandel say?

On Thursday, August 5, Bethany shared two photos of a disposal mask with yellow spots, making it appear contaminated. "This mask is like this after one day," she captioned them. In the following tweet, she wrote, “This is one day of use on a small child.” People on Twitter were quick to condemn Bethany for allowing her children to wear such filthy masks given her prior tweet about parents "scaring" children into wearing masks. 

“If that’s your kids mask, please take them to a doctor because that’s not normal. knowing you, it’s just a stunt you’ve done for clicks. No one’s masks look like this after one day. Nurses had to wear the same masks until they disintegrated, and ours didn’t look like that," a Twitter user said. "Good cover Bethany. My 4 year old wears a mask and it has also never looked like this," said another. "Bethany mandel won’t see your dunks on her disgusting mask pic but your friends with incurable Legionnaire’s Morgellons will," a third added. "When you find out the hard way that your kid chews tobacco," a fourth chimed in.