Following a six-year battle, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate has finally made public the lists of overseas rabbis it recognizes for the purposes of conversion and divorce. This year, Ivanka Trump’s rabbi made the cut. The lists only contain the names of Orthodox rabbis, because the religious institution does not recognize other Jewish movements. The conversion and…
One day when Linda Gerstel was in ninth grade, one of her teachers at the prestigious Ramaz School, Albert Goetz, asked her to stay late after class. By then, in the mid-1970s, Goetz had become a formidable figure at Ramaz, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He would soon become a legendary college adviser, able to…
NEW YORK (JTA) — When he was attending the Ramaz School in the early 2000s, David Ellenberg heard whispers that Albert Goetz, a math teacher, photographed the feet of female students. But Ellenberg was also skeptical of the Manhattan Jewish day school’s rumor mill. So when he heard about the photos, he said “it sounded…
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, a global Jewish leader who officiated at Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s wedding, was aware of multiple instances of sexual misconduct by educators affiliated with the Upper East Side school he ran for 50 years, which is considered one of the best private Jewish academies in the country. This is according to…
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…
(JTA) — Perhaps the injury-plagued New York Mets thought that having a rabbi throw out the first pitch before a game would bring some divine intervention. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the prominent modern Orthodox rabbi who oversaw Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism, made the ceremonial toss at the Mets-Marlins game on Sunday to a smattering of applause at…
Before last summer’s Republican National Convention, the widely esteemed Rabbi Haskel Lookstein was asked to deliver the invocation. He was reportedly honored and graciously accepted, but soon, petitions and protest led the rabbi, who served as Ivanka Trump’s sponsoring conversion rabbi, to rescind his acceptance. Despite the fact that the role has traditionally been apolitical,…
Being a convert to Orthodox Judaism in America is much like riding a roller coaster. The initial high many experience after completing a conversion in the mikveh is followed by an inevitable low. After uprooting and completely altering one’s life, converts reach the high of being told they will be loved and accepted by the…
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