Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Trump Inauguration Rabbi Received at Least $35,000 From Kushners

(JTA) — Ivanka Trump’s in-laws have donated to an organization headed by the rabbi who is scheduled to deliver a prayer at the inauguration of her father, President-elect Donald Trump.

The Charles and Seryl Kushner Family Foundation has donated $35,000 to the Simon Wiesenthal Center:   $25,000 in 2011 and $10,000 in 2012, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported, citing the foundation’s tax filings. Hier is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, is the son of Charles and Seryl Kushner.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee announced last week that Hier will offer readings, recite an original prayer and give Trump and incoming Vice President Mike Pence each a benediction at the Jan. 20 ceremony. He is one of six religious leaders who will participate in the inauguration.

Hier expressed concern about Trump when he was a candidate for the presidency, but since the announcement of his selection to participate in the inauguration has said it would be his “honor” to participate and that he will deliver a prayer with a “21st century ring to it.”

Hier and his Wiesenthal Center earlier last week called the U.S. abstention on a United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Israel for settlement building the top anti-Semitic incident of 2016.

He is not the first rabbi connected to the Kushner family who has been invited to participate in a major Trump event, Haaretz pointed out. In July, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, who oversaw Ivanka Trump’s conversion, was asked to deliver the invocation at the Republican national convention. He later backed out after pressure from the Modern Orthodox community of which he is a leader.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  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.