Ivanka’s Rabbi ‘Deeply Troubled’ By Trump’s Charlottesville Remarks
Image by YouTube
By Aiden Pink August 16, 2017
Rabbis from one of one of the most prominent synagogues in Manhattan — including the rabbi who oversaw Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism — condemned President Trump’s remarks in response to last week’s white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Va. and the ensuing death of a counter-protestor.
“While we always avoid politics, we are deeply troubled by the moral equivalency and equivocation President Trump has offered in his response to this act of violence,” rabbis Chaim Steinmetz, Elie Weinstock, and Haskel Lookstein wrote in a letter on Wednesday to members of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and its affiliated Ramaz School. Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner were members of Kehilath Jeshurun, and Lookstein oversaw Trump’s conversion.
“We pray that our country heeds the voices of tolerance, and stays true to its vision of human rights and civil rights,” the letter continued. It also contained condemnations of the anti-Semitism and racism expressed by the Charlottesville marchers and referred congregants to a similar letter issued earlier that day by the Rabbinical Council of America, the nation’s largest body of Orthodox rabbis.
Lookstein had been invited by Ivanka Trump to deliver a prayer at the Republican National Convention last year, but dropped out after being criticized by Ramaz students and alumni.
(h/t New York magazine)
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
