Ivanka Trump Says Donald ‘Very Supportive’ of Conversion to Judaism

Image by Getty Images
Ivanka Trump said her father, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, was fully supportive of her conversion to Judaism.
“My father was very supportive,” she said at a CNN town hall meeting featuring the presidential candidate and his family broadcast Tuesday evening. “He knows me. He knows and he trusts my judgment. When I make decisions, I make them in a well-reasoned way. I don’t rush into things.
Ivanka Trump, who works for her real estate magnate father’s corporation, had an Orthodox conversion before marrying Jared Kushner, the scion of another real estate family.
“I appreciate the support [my father] gave me because obviously these decisions are not taken lightly,” Ivanka Trump said, replying to a question from Joseph Cohen, a law student at Columbia University.
“And it would have been much more hard if I had had headwinds, but he believes in me,” she said. “He loves my husband. They’re incredibly close, which I think was obviously helpful. And he has been very supportive of me in that decision, as in many others that I’ve taken throughout the years.”
Kushner has been the Trump campaign’s main point man to the Jewish community, and he helped shape the candidate’s well-received speech last month to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The candidates on both the Republican and Democratic slates are focusing on their messaging to the Jewish community ahead of the April 19 New York state primary.
CNN is having town hall meetings this week for each of the three Republican presidential candidates and their families.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 2
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
-
Fast Forward First American pope, Leo XIV, studied under a leader in Jewish-Catholic relations
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.