Kabbalah Centre’s New Branding Campaign Aims To ‘Demystify’ Jewish Mysticism

Image by Base Design

By Sam Kestenbaum December 14, 2017

The Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre is teaming up with “branding gurus” at the company Base Design to launch a new advertising campaign — rendering Jewish mysticism for mass consumption.

Geoff Cook, a partner at Base Design told Quartz that they were looking to “demystify” Kabbalah. To this end, the branding company created a slew of new, sleek designs — like greeting cards carrying the 72 names for God, clothbound books and branded water bottles. The new effort will include a revamped website, mobile app and podcasts.

The Centre is also unrolling a set of subway ads. The ads picture portraits of models and “at first glance, look like fashion spreads,” Quartz wrote. The Kabbalistic red string bracelet — popularized in recent memory by the Centre’s celebrity acolytes and Ivanka Trump — is notably absent from the latest campaign.

The current version of the Centre was founded in the 1980s and has attracted high profile (and non Jewish) members, like Madonna and Britney Spears. Kaballah is a historic Jewish type of mysticism, but has also long been popular in in Christian, occult and New Age circles.

If you want to read more about the Kaballah Centre, check out stories here and here.

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

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO