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Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?
Imagine you were a Jewish converso, secretly living in Italy or France after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had expelled your family from Spain. You could not affix a mezuzah to your door or light Shabbat candles. If you were caught avoiding treyf, or if you were a male converso and someone discovered you were circumcised, your life and that of your family were in immediate danger. In these circumstances, how could a secret Jew living in antisemitic medieval Europe learn about Judaism?
Enter tarot — the deck of playing cards used in fortune-telling and divination — and specifically, the Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille deck. Each tarot card represents a specific archetype that the “reader” of the deck uses to try and understand their future, or answer a specific question.
According to Stav Appel, an amateur tarot historian and author of The Torah in the Tarot — a new guidebook and reissued deck of the Jean Noblet Tarot, the contemporary tarot deck may have been a medieval Jewish invention to preserve Jewish knowledge in the face of overwhelming antisemitic oppression. Each card is replete with hidden Jewish knowledge, Appel says, and the deck as a whole functioned as a crypto-Jewish educational tool.
The deck, Appel writes, can be “understood as a parade of crypto-Jews, each card bearing a false name and a false face to mask its true identity from a hostile world.”
An accidental tarot historian
Appel is not a historian by training. He lives in upstate New York, has an MBA from Yale and has spent his professional life as an organizational design consultant and data analyst. Some of his formative years were spent in Israel, where he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but he is not a rabbi or any sort of formal Torah educator. Rather, Appel is the sort of humble, mundane Torah scholar that is increasingly rare in 21st-century Jewish life.
Orthodox synagogues are full of scholars more learned in Torah than he is, he said, but “when you study a little bit of Torah every day for 40 years, it accumulates.”
According to Appel, tarot “had no presence in his life whatsoever” until about 10 years ago, when his wife visited a bookstore that was closing and had a shelf full of tarot cards at bargain prices. On a whim, she bought a deck — a version of the Tarot de Marseille — and suggested to a bemused Appel that he use them to make up stories for their children.
When Appel and his kids started playing with the cards, he instantly noticed that they were filled with Bible stories: On one card, four divine animals that the prophet Ezekiel sees in his vision; on another, a collapsing grand building that looked like a depiction of the destruction of the Second Temple.
“The Judaic references were obvious,” he said, but he thought they were merely references to the Old Testament, and not indicative of a Jewish backstory to tarot. Nevertheless intrigued, he joined a Facebook group about tarot and began to research on his own. He wanted to know “who put all these Bible stories in a deck of playing cards?”
The Rider-Waite tarot deck (also known as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck) was released in 1909 and is one of the most popular tarot decks ever created, with thousands of variations. Though the Rider-Waite contains a hodge-podge of esoteric traditions, numerous cards bear Hebrew letters.
Appel learned that the Rider-Waite had been copied from a much, much older deck called the Tarot de Marseille, which dates back to at least the late 15th century. The older the version of the Tarot de Marseille deck Appel saw, the clearer the biblical references were. When he tracked down a replica of a 1650 deck, he recalled thinking, “Oh my God.”
“These aren’t Bible stories at all,” he thought. “These are Torah stories. This is Judaica.’”
The discovery
One card in the Jean Noblet deck was particularly stunning: The Magician.
In Rider-Waite and other tarot decks, the Magician is typically depicted holding aloft what looks like a wand. In the Noblet deck, however, it’s slightly different.
“What do you think he’s holding in his hand?” Appel asked me.
I leaned in to look, and realized it was obvious: “A circumcised penis” — the symbol of Abraham’s eternal covenant with God.
In his written guide for the reissued deck, Appel points out that on the table before the Magician is a complete antique circumcision kit, including a knife and its sheath for cutting the foreskin, and a shield to protect the penis.
Once your eyes are trained to see the Judaica, Appel’s right; it can be obvious. The top of the hat the Magician wears, for example, is the tip of a circumcised penis emerging from its cut foreskin. The helmet of the Emperor in another card is a disguised dreidel tipped onto its side. On the Chariot card, the Chariot itself resembles a bimah, and its wheels are Torah scrolls.
Often, though, finding the hidden Judaica can require a considerable level of Torah knowledge, a sophisticated eye for symbology and a dash of imagination. For example, each card has a secret Hebrew letter within it. In the Magician, the Hebrew letter aleph (א) is hidden in the figure’s curved arms.
How did this remain hidden?
There had been speculation for years about the Jewish influence on tarot, particularly given that there are 22 Major Arcana cards (a tarot deck is divided into 22 named Major Arcana cards and 56 numbered Minor Arcana cards), and there are 22 letters in the Hebrew aleph bet. Yet over the centuries, Jewish mysticism had been widely distorted by Christian occultists. Tarot historians believed that any traces of Hebrew or biblical influence left on the tarot cards were evidence of this appropriation, and not of any inherent Jewish origins.
As Appel studied the Noblet deck and found more and more hidden Judaica, he reached out to tarot historians who told him he was speaking “utter nonsense.”
“Their emotional response was quite fascinating,” Appel reflected. “It’s a real challenge to these very accomplished tarot historians who have built a very different narrative that does not make space for Jews and Judaism.”
Jewish historians were more receptive, but dubious. If the tarot deck was a hidden educational tool of Torah study, why hadn’t this been discovered already by a rabbi or someone with, say, a Ph.D.?
Appel decided to self-publish a deck, and started an Instagram account, where he posted images of the cards and shared his theories on their Judaic origins. Many people began pointing out additional hidden Jewish objects and symbols that he had missed. “People really pushed me, and collectively, we went much deeper into the cards,” he said.
Crypto-teaching aid
With each new Judaic subtlety revealed, Appel and his online community marveled at the sophistication of the Judaic knowledge they contained, and the skillfulness with which it was hidden. “It’s a masterpiece of art and a major accomplishment of cryptography,” he said, describing the cards as an “incredibly efficient system” to teach about Jewish practice — the Jean Noblet deck contains a full curriculum of Judaic studies.
Appel emphasizes that he is not a formal historian and cannot be 100% certain of his hypotheses. Perhaps the cards were just Jewish fortune-telling cards, or an example of Jewish mystical art. But the density of Judaic content seemed to support his contention that the cards were used as a tool for Jewish education. “The only reason someone would be motivated to conceal so much information is they wanted it to be a memory device for a teacher,” Appel said. “It’s like a really fancy teaching aid.”
Appel has lectured at synagogues and community centers and given a presentation at the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, where he says he was received warmly. One of the attendees, Corinne Brown, the chair of the conference, told me in an email that Appel’s arguments were “iron clad.” She compared his discovery to that of finding King Tut’s tomb, where “an entire culture had been assembled for an unknown afterlife.”
Academics at the conference told him there had been studies where crypto-Jews had reported the tradition of gathering over playing cards as a cover story to learn Torah. In a note included with the deck’s reissue, the society wrote that while they are not tarot historians, “we can confirm the development of clandestine means of Jewish continuity was a common practice in crypto-Jewish communities following the exile of Spanish Jewry in 1492.”
The origins of the word tarot potentially lend Appel’s ideas some credibility. The word tarot comes from an Italian dialect word tarocci, which means “the fool,” and was first documented in 1516 in Ferrara, Italy. It supplanted, somehow, the name trionfi (meaning “cards”), which was first used to describe 13th- and 14th-century Italian playing cards that had allegorical images.
Tarot historians do not have any answers as to how the word tarocci replaced trionfi, and why it happened specifically in the early 1500s and in cities like Ferrara and Avignon, France. Appel thinks the etymological shift was due to a wave of conversos fleeing Spain who began using the cards as a secret Jewish tool, as both Ferrara and Avignon were home to many crypto-Jews. There is currently no evidence to support this theory, but it is a compelling possible explanation.
What now?
Appel’s hope in reissuing the deck is that it will provoke more serious scholarship and research. He has also come to a new appreciation of tarot and the Jewish magical and esoteric rituals that went underground in the face of violent Christian persecution.
Given that divination is explicitly outlawed in the Torah, I was curious if Appel had received any rabbinic pushback to his claims that Jews may have invented the preeminent tool of fortune telling in an effort to preserve Jewish continuity. There was some, he acknowledged, but it was ironic given the rich history of Jewish mysticism, magic and esoteric practice. Jews were seen by their Christian neighbors as a source of magic in the Middle Ages, Appel told me, with “a robust culture of spell casting.”
“In the 20th century, we’ve done a really good job of cleaning up Judaism to make it look really neat and tidy, as if it was always this hyper-rationalist religion,” Appel said. “That’s a contemporary invention, and it’s just not the truth.”
The post Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck? appeared first on The Forward.
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What Hailey Bieber smoothies and instant matzo ball soup reveal about American Jewish taste
It has become exceedingly difficult to get a bowl of kosher matzo ball soup in my L.A. neighborhood. I’m reminded of this every few months, when a cold or a craving reminds me what we lost when Pico Kosher Deli, established in 1968 about a mile from my apartment, closed for good early in the pandemic. It’s not just the soup, of course. It’s the whole kosher deli experience — bulging pastrami sandwiches, a waitress with a notepad, frilly toothpicks.
The traditional kosher deli is dying, if not dead, and not just in L.A. Kosher Ashkenazi fare is officially passé, a cuisine category today’s balabustas — at least my millennial Modern Orthodox cohort — have abandoned. At the kosher markets, Manischewitz products are relegated to a dusty corner, the “kosher aisle” of the kosher grocer. And at surviving delis like Katz’s and Canter’s, kosher is not a religious certification. It is, simply, a nostalgia cue immediately preceding the word “style.”
Fortunately, a wave of new, smartly packaged foodstuffs capitalizing on that nostalgia has arrived to restore my Ashkenazi birthright, or at least my former sodium levels. In the years since my neighborhood deli closed, direct-to-consumer brands have launched to hawk kosher potato latke crisps, kosher matzo chips and kosher jarred charoset (lovingly named Schmutz). The newcomer that I sprung for was a kosher instant matzo ball soup called Nooish. A box of four stout, colorful soup cups arrived about a week after I ordered them online.
To find out why these shelf-stable products have taken off while delis languish, I called Nate Rosen, whose official title — creator of the consumer brands newsletter Express Checkout — obscures the coolness of his job, which largely consists of reviewing new snacks on TikTok. According to Rosen, the kosher renaissance was part of a broader surge of food startups during the pandemic, when free time and disposable income were suddenly in abundance. It was inevitable someone would find the Jewish angle on the trend.
“There’s a market for it,” Rosen said. “There’s dedicated spots for it [on shelves]. And I think especially now, people are proud to be Jewish and proud to show that off a little bit.”
Nooish’s instant soup, ready in just a couple minutes, doesn’t come with booth seating. But taste-wise, comfort-wise and deli-wise, it’s a worthy adaptation of the experience. The kneidlach — three to a cup, each a bit larger than a Ping-Pong ball and floating in a salty brown broth, hold their form but obey your spoon. (There’s no chicken, and the soup is certified pareve.) At four-for-$36, the instant soup is probably too pricey for your kid’s lunchbox, and not substantial enough for an adult meal. But in a pinch — say, a cold or a craving — it can be transporting.
If the kosher deli is out, what’s in? The answer awaited me at Hatch Kitchen, a new kosher meat restaurant, where earlier this week I watched a barista prepare a fancy smoothie. Elaborate, astonishingly expensive and often named after celebrities, fancy smoothies are an L.A. institution, the lifeblood of the influencer class. The most notorious of these drinks, the upscale grocery chain Erewhon’s Hailey Bieber smoothie, contains strawberries and dates but also vanilla collagen powder and something called sea moss gel. It costs $20.
Hatch, I was told, makes something similar, the strawberry-based “Or-gan-ic” (the middle syllable also the Hebrew word for garden), which the restaurant calls its “most viral smoothie.” No sea moss gel, but the menu touts “anti-inflammatory” ingredients that include flax seeds and hibiscus. It’s $12, which sounds like a lot if you’ve never spent $20 on a smoothie before, and like a bargain if you just did, and for that one you’d had to look a cashier in the eye and utter the name of Justin Bieber’s wife. (At Hatch, you order from an iPad.)
Hatch’s fancy smoothie — which is also a photogenic one — models the dominant trend in contemporary kosher dining: pop-culture mimicry. Across from where the Pico Kosher Deli once stood, you can order a kosher crunchwrap supreme — a Taco Bell menu item — from a Mexican street food place called Lenny’s Casita. Kosher cafes still serve bagels, but people go for the avocado toast. It’s kosher dining’s hypebeast era, if you can afford it; Lenny’s crunchwrap with beef runs $30. I’m not sure how close the knockoff is to the real thing, or whether proximity really matters. Most customers will never taste the alternative.
There’s a tension inherent in these appropriated menu items — affirming both the desirability of secular culture and the Jewish laws forbidding it. Cultural diffusion and communal retreat. Assimilation and resistance. Meanwhile, the ancestral cuisine, which emerged out of kosher dietary laws, has been simultaneously rejected and idealized. You can’t find too many kosher delis, but TikTok has popularized pickle fountains. (Wait until they find out about hamantaschen.)
I was sort of sad about this state of affairs until I spoke to David Sax, who was dismayed enough about the decline of delis to write a book about it. He explained that Jewish deli food developed as a way of transforming European deli methods and flavors, which were more often made with pork, into kosher adaptations. The corned beef sandwich was the original fancy smoothie, which means our kosher crunchwrap might become tomorrow’s matzo ball soup. The comfort food changes, but the people endure.
The post What Hailey Bieber smoothies and instant matzo ball soup reveal about American Jewish taste appeared first on The Forward.
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Hamas, Hezbollah, Terror Allies Vow to Keep Fighting Israel, Reject Regional Peace Initiatives
Hamas terrorists carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Hamas and allied terrorist groups on Friday hailed the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel as a “landmark victory,” rejecting disarmament and vowing to continue fighting the Jewish state even as international efforts push to implement a regional peace plan.
Leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and several other Islamist terrorist groups gathered at the 34th Arab National Conference in Beirut, where speakers called for “resistance against the Israeli occupation and its expansionist projects in Palestine and the region,” Arabic-language Lebanese news outlet Al Mayadeen reported.
During the summit, terrorist leaders rejected efforts to compel them to disarm and pledged to continue fighting against Western influence across the Middle East, emphasizing the central role of weapons “in protecting national sovereignty and securing the region’s future.”
“On Oct. 7, an extraordinary act of heroism unfolded across Palestine and its borders, as people everywhere contributed in their own way to support us,” Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya said during the conference, referring to the group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel in 2023.
“Gaza is wounded today, but it remains steadfast, calling on everyone to stay united in the pursuit of our legitimate national goals,” the terrorist leader continued.
“Palestine will endure, just as Gaza has, despite the aggression — its land, its people, men, women, and children — and eventually, injustice will be overcome,” al-Hayya said.
” طوفان الأقصى كان رداً على محاولات طمس القضية الفلسطينية وبناء شرق أوسط جديد”
رئيس حركة حماس في #غزة خليل الحية #الميادين pic.twitter.com/tsSAc44KXY
— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) November 7, 2025
At the Beirut gathering, Hamas and its terrorist allies praised the Oct. 7 atrocities, calling them a turning point in their fight against the “Zionist occupation.” They also opposed any attempt to divide Gaza and reaffirmed their commitment to unity.
“We emerged from this battle against the occupation with our weapons in hand. All resistance factions stood united against the aggression, and that same solidarity extended to the political front,” Palestinian Islamic Jihad chief Ziad al-Nakhala said during the conference.
“[US President Donald] Trump’s plan has set numerous obstacles and conditions that cannot be implemented,” al-Nakhala continued, referring to the US-backed peace plan aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
“لقد كانت كل فصائل المقاومة يداً واحدة في وجه العدوان وكذلك كان الحال على الصعيد السياسي ولولا ذلك لما صمدنا شهراً واحداً”
الأمين العام لحركة الجهاد الإسلامي زياد النحالة في افتتاح الدورة الـ34 للمؤتمر القومي العربي في بيروت pic.twitter.com/w71U1GNkZx
— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) November 7, 2025
Amid international efforts to mediate the Gaza conflict and bring peace to the Middle East, Hamas and its allies said they opposed all such initiatives, opting instead to escalate violence and advance their own agenda.
At the summit, Jamil Mazhar, deputy secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), called for “rejecting plans to place the Palestinian people under tutelage and opposing any attempt at demographic change” — a clear rebuke of the Gaza peace plan.
Under Trump’s plan, an International Stabilization Force (ISF) will oversee the Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and train local security forces
The ISF would include troops from multiple participating countries and would be responsible for securing Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, while also protecting civilians and maintaining humanitarian corridors.
“We have gathered to renew our commitment against the Zionist enemy and its allies, and to reaffirm that the fight continues,” Mazhar said during his speech at the conference.
“Today, we must move beyond mere solidarity and slogans, and put them into practical action,” the terrorist leader continued.
During the summit, Hezbollah international relations official Ammar al-Moussawi reaffirmed the Lebanese terrorist group’s commitment to defending and supporting the “resistance in Gaza.”
“We joined the battle to support Gaza out of our conviction in the justice and righteousness of this cause, and we do not regret our decision,” al-Moussawi said.
“History shows that the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine has endured crises far graver than today’s, and the same resistance that produced those martyred leaders is fully capable of producing new ones,” he continued.
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi also said at the conference that “the support fronts have played a key role throughout this important two-year round.”
“Hezbollah’s role is at the forefront of the support fronts, thanks to its steadfastness, pioneering and significant contributions, and immense sacrifices,” the leader of the terrorist group in Yemen said.
“The Israeli enemy, in alliance with the United States, seeks to impose a permissive formula and always place the blame on the victim,” he added.
“The Israeli enemy is attempting to disarm the weapons that protect Lebanon and the arms that have prevented it from controlling Gaza for the past two years,” al-Houthi said.
“العدو الإسرائيلي يحاول نزع السلاح الذي يحمي لبنان والسلاح الذي يُعيقه عن السيطرة على غزة على مدى عامين”
قائد حركة أنصار الله السيد عبد الملك الحوثي في افتتاح الدورة الـ34 للمؤتمر القومي العربي في بيروت pic.twitter.com/utTs6S26Wc
— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) November 7, 2025
Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all backed by Iran, which provides the Islamist groups with weapons, funding, and training.
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US Rep. Elise Stefanik, Outspoken Pro-Israel Supporter, Jumps Into New York Gubernatorial Race
US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), one of Israel’s staunchest allies in the US Congress, officially announced on Friday that she will run for governor of New York in the 2026 election, a move that could reshape the political landscape in the Empire State.
In a campaign video released early Friday morning, Stefanik declared that she would fight to make “New York affordable and safe for families all across our great state.” She took aim at incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s leadership, declaring her the “worst governor in America.”
The campaign announcement video lambasted Hochul’s “failed policies” and depicted New York as a wasteland overrun by “migrant crime.”
“Our campaign will unify Republicans, Democrats, and independents to fire Kathy Hochul once and for all to save New York,” Stefanik said in a statement.
Stefanik, 41, has represented New York’s 21st Congressional District since January 2015 and has risen to national prominence as chair of the House Republican Conference. A close ally of US President Donald Trump, she has also emerged as one of the most outspoken defenders of Israel in the US House of Representatives.
During the Israel-Hamas war, Stefanik earned praise across Jewish communities for her unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’s terrorism and her efforts to hold American universities accountable for antisemitic incidents on campus. Her fiery December 2023 questioning of Ivy League presidents during a congressional hearing, in which she pressed them on their refusal to denounce calls for genocide against Jews, went viral and cemented her reputation as a defender of American Jewry.
In March, Trump withdrew Stefanik’s nomination to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations due to the Republican Party’s razor-thin margins in the House of Representatives and concerns over passing legislation.
Though most polls indicate that Hochul maintains a lead over Stefanik, a recent survey by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the conservative firebrand leading Hochul 43 percent to 42 percent in a head-to-head matchup.
Hochul issued a pithy retort to Stefanik’s attacks.
“My message to Trump’s ‘top ally’ – bring it on,” Hochul said on X.
Though New York remains a heavily Democratic state, her candidacy could energize conservatives across upstate and suburban regions, particularly amid voter discontent over crime, migration, and the state’s economy. However, skeptics suggest that her status as a close Trump ally could capsize her candidacy in a historically blue state.
Pro-Israel groups have long considered Stefanik one of their strongest allies on Capitol Hill. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other advocacy organizations have praised her leadership on anti-BDS legislation and support for US military aid to Israel. In April, she introduced the Countering Hate Against Israel by Federal Contractors Act, which would bar entities that boycott Israel from doing business with the US federal government.
Stefanik’s quest to become governor comes as Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Israel activist and member of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), prepares to become mayor of New York City following his election victory on Tuesday. Stefanik lambasted Hochul recently after the governor issued a formal endorsement of Mamdani, claiming that Hochul aligned herself with Mamdani’s alleged antisemitism. If Stefanik were to become governor, she could potentially serve as a critical bulwark in thwarting any anti-Israel policies from Mamdani’s office.
If elected, Stefanik would become the first female Republican governor of New York.