Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Eric And Lara’s Baby Will Not Be A Jewish Trump

Updated, 2:50 p.m.: While several Jewish publications including the Forward reported that Eric Trump’s wife Lara is Jewish, the White House says she is not.

Eric Trump and his wife Lara, who some outlets reported is Jewish, announced Monday they are expecting their first child – a boy – in September.

But the White House told the JTA the newest Trump will not be a member of the tribe.

The confusion seems to begin with the couple’s wedding. In 2014, the New York Post reported that Eric Trump and Lara Yunaska tied the knot under a “crystal-embellished chuppah.” A chuppah is a Jewish wedding canopy. The Post also reported that Jared Kushner officiated, telling the bride, “You are not just gaining a family you are getting 6 million Twitter followers.” Tablet Magazine reported that the ceremony at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. was “another Jewish Trump wedding for the ages.”

Kushner is an Orthodox Jew married to President Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism. The couple has three children. Ivanka Trump frequently tweets and posts photos about her Jewish observance.

Lara Yunaska Trump grew up in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina and studied communications at North Carolina State University, according to StarNews Media. After graduating, she interned at local TV stations, then moved to New York City in 2007 to study pastry arts at The French Culinary Institute. She was selling cakes out of her apartment when she was hired as a producer for the CBS news program “Inside Edition.” She met Eric Trump in New York, the StarNews reported.

Twitter users cheered on the Trumps, but others used the announcement to take a dig at the couple, suggesting they count their blessings for having health insurance and not having to fear being deported.

Contact Daniella Cheslow at [email protected].

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.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  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.