I’m Katie.
I’m a multipotentialite, lifelong global nomad, unbound Jew, adventurer, and all-around nerd. I serve as the artistic director of Judaism Unbound.
I’m neurodivergent and I regularly develop intense, totally encompassing passions for new things.
For example, in 2015, I started to learn about wine and within months, I was in the Mosel in Germany working the harvest and learning winemaking. I started cycling in 2020 and founded my own collective and rode over 5000 kilometers in my first year.
I’m so lucky that my job allows me to channel my enthusiasm in my work, so if we share any interests and you want to work together, that would be awesome.
I’m into…
Building a just society
I’m committed to using the power and privilege that I have as a white, midde-class, queer, neurodivergent, Jew to agitate for a better world. I prioritize building and nourishing radical communities and always learning to be a better ally to all oppressed people.
Writing
Occasionally, I write for online publications and earlier in my career I was the Managing Editor of a feminist new media site and ran a digital writing fellowship for young women.
Adventure!
I have always been happiest outdoors. Hiking, climbing, cycling, wild swimming: you name it, I’m in.
Earth-based Jewish spiritual community
I have helped to cultivate wild Jewish experiences that prioritise connection to land in diaspora as a Ya’ad Leadership Fellow with the UK Reform Movement and resident of the first Moishe Pod in the UK.
Exploring by bike.
Food stories and farming
+ nourishing the people I love whenever I can.
Photography
My great love for the last 15 years.
Podcast + Documentary Appearances
Eat the Archives is an intimate participatory performance designed for private, domestic spaces. Eat the Archives unfolds over a meal co-hosted with a participant at their home, for their guests. The performance features artefacts from Manchester Jewish Museum’s collection, and the stories behind those objects inspire both the narrative thread of the performance and the menu served during the piece.
Katie Kaestner-Frenchman (https://www.katherinekaestner.com) is Judaism Unbound’s amazing Marketing, Communications, and Creative Maven! They join their colleagues Dan and Lex for the first conversation in an ongoing Judaism Unbound mini-series, exploring conversion to Judaism. What superpowers do converts often bring to Jewish life? What barriers do they continue to face in Jewish spaces? What on earth do we do with the fact that everyone on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was so unbelievably mean to Astrid — the one character on the show who is a Jew-by-Choice? All these questions and more come up in this episode!
In this episode we spoke to Levi Zapata, Katie Kaestner-Frenchman and Lìdice, three organizers of Colectivo Sirpad (סרפד), a Queer Anti-Zionist and Diasporist group in Spain. In our conversation we delved in to the rich Jewish history of the country and explored how Jews have contributed to and pushed against the formation of Spanish national culture. By diving into the history and present of Sepharad our guests offer a unique look into the way diaspora cultures constitute and subverts contemporary understandings of national identity. Subscribe to our collaborative YouTube Follow us on Instagram Instagram If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon! Big thank you to Dan Nichols and Aly Halpert for allowing us to use their music for our intro and outro.