Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Televangelist Who ‘Laid Hands’ On Trump Is Hosting A Special Passover Seder

A popular televangelist who “laid hands” on Donald Trump leading up the election — praying for the candidate’s success and evoking Jesus Christ — will be hosting a “Messianic Seder” on the second night of Passover.

“I’m going to show you the different elements, beloved ones, of the Passover and show you the application for your lives today,” said Kirt Schneider, host of “Discovering The Jewish Jesus,” in a promotional video for the event.

Schneider calls himself a Messianic Rabbi and a “Jewish believer in Jesus.” He joins a number of evangelicals and Messianics who have popularized the Christian celebration of the Passover Seder.

In the Christian or Messianic adaptations of the Passover Seder, Jesus is seen as the sacrificial Passover lamb. “The Bible tells us that Christ has become our Passover,” Schneider said. “Jesus is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

This Christian embrace of Passover — and Christian interest more broadly in traditionally Jewish holidays or rituals — has bewildered and offended some in the Jewish community.

In 2015, Schnieder led a prayer ceremony in Trump Tower alongside a group of evangelical leaders —including Trump’s “spiritual advisor” Paula White. Schneider placed his hand on Trump’s face and offered a blessing — in both Hebrew and English.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.