Is Eric Trump’s Wife Lara Jewish?

Eric Trump delivers a speech on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Image by Getty Images

By Josefin Dolsten March 21, 2017

(JTA) — It turns out President Donald Trump’s next grandson probably won’t be having a bris.

Though Jewish media outlets (including JTA) widely reported that Lara Trump, the pregnant wife of Eric Trump, is a Member of the Tribe, she is in fact not Jewish, a White House Press Office representative confirmed to JTA on Tuesday. The representative declined to give her name.

Following a Monday announcement by the couple that that they were expecting a baby boy, the Jewish baby frenzy went into motion.

The false impression that Lara Trump (nee Yunaska), a former personal trainer and former CBS producer for “Inside Edition,” is Jewish seems to trace back to a 2014 Page Six article that said the couple wed under “a crystal-embellished chuppa” (with Jewish brother-in-law Jared Kushner officiating). It’s not clear whether the canopy in fact was inspired by Jewish themes, but following the publication of that article, Jewish media outlets (along with some anti-Semitic ones) referred to her as Jewish.

Ethnicelebs.com, a website that traces the ancestry of celebrities, debunked the claim in July — reporting Lara instead to be of Slovak, English, German, remote Swiss-German and Dutch heritage — but that didn’t put the rumor to rest.

That isn’t to say the Lara and Eric’s baby won’t be surrounded by plenty of Jewish influences. He will have three Jewish cousins: the children of Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a convert to Orthodox Judaism, and Jared. And another Trump daughter, Tiffany, is dating Ross Mechanic, who is Jewish.

But unless Laura and Eric are so impressed by Jewish practices that they decide to join the Tribe, it seems that they won’t be having a Jewish child anytime soon.

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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