Is Ivanka Trump Jewish? Her conversion raises doubts
Is Ivanka Trump Really Jewish?
Last year the Jewish religious authorities issued an opinion that cast doubt on her conversion to Judaism. But after the election of her father Donald Trump as president, a new interpretation of religious laws emerged that has generated suspicion among sectors that pressed for greater tolerance of converts.
Trump's daughter converted to Judaism under the tutelage of a prominent Manhattan Orthodox rabbi before marrying Jared Kushner, a practicing Jew, in 2009.
In its ruling last July, the government court for religious affairs rejected the legitimacy of another conversion made by the same rabbi. While that ruling did not directly affect Ivanka Trump, some doubts arose as to whether that powerful Israeli religious institution would accept Trump's daughter as a Jew.
Until in December, a few weeks after Trump's electoral victory, Israel's top rabbis said they would change the rules to recognize conversions made abroad and specifically mentioned the case of Ivanka Trump.
"Under the proposal ... her conversion will be confirmed without the need for further investigation," they said in a statement.
Israeli activists believe the sudden policy change looks like an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the new US president. Ivanka Trump's husband has been appointed Trump's adviser and he is expected to focus on efforts to seal peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
A commission of Israeli rabbis has met several times to discuss ways to speed up conversions, according to activists.
"The timing of all this is certainly a source of suspicion," said Rabbi Seth Farber, director of ITIM, an organization that represents Jewish converts who want to be recognized by the Jewish hierarchy. "My main concern is that the rabbis find a way to certify that Mrs. Trump is kosher, to acknowledge her conversion, by putting aside thousands of converts, simply saying that they are not Jewish enough for us."
The New York Jewish community newspaper Jewish Week credited unidentified sources from Trump's transition team with saying that senior US government figures had expressed concerns to Israel about the legitimacy of Ivanka Trump's conversion and that Israel's efforts by acknowledging their conversion they could encourage a closer relationship between the Trump family and Israel.
A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to calls seeking confirmation, and Washington Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who is close to Ivanka Trump, declined to comment.
A spokesman for one of Israel's top rabbis said the changes had been brewing for a long time and were not a direct result of Trump's election.
"Even before Ivanka Trump, people had been talking about this," Pinchas Tennenbaum said.
Given that Ivanka Trump does not live in Israel, the issue is relatively secondary. But for the converts of Israel, the dictates of the rabbis affect their daily lives. If they are not recognized as Jews, they cannot marry in Israel and theoretically cannot have a religious burial when they die.
Israel's orthodox establishment does not recognize the conversions carried out by the Reform and Conservative sector of Judaism, to which the majority of American Jews adhere. But immigration authorities are more liberal, generally granting citizenship to Reform and Conservative converts because they consider them Jewish.
Many Jews totally ignore the rabbinate, as religious authorities are told. Some even consider it corrupt. A rabbi of the religious courts was recently sentenced to three and a half years in prison for corruption and bribery.
"The rabbinate is a fossilized institution that does not meet the needs of modern times," said Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli columnist. "Most Israelis regard Ivanka Trump's recognition of Judaism, or non-recognition of it, as not very serious."
Some say that religious courts reject dozens of conversions every year, claiming they were not rigorous enough. And they were seen in figurines when they refused to recognize the conversion of the American Nicole Zeitler, 31 years old.
Zeitler said her conversion was a very rigorous process that included two weekly meetings with Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the same one who worked on the conversion of Ivanka Trump.
The American woman, she settled in Israel and became engaged to an Israeli, but the rabbinical courts did not grant her a license for not considering her Jewish.
This created a scandal and Zeitler was eventually allowed to convert through a declaration of faith, though without formally acknowledging the conversion process overseen by Rabbi Lookstein.
“The rabbinical establishment is ultra-conservative. Rabbi Lookstein is a bit more outspoken, ”Farber said.
Lookstein declined to comment and referred all questions to Farber.
Elad Kaplan, an ITIM attorney who represented Zeitler before religious courts, believes the woman's confirmation is directly related to Trump's election.
"It would have been a very uncomfortable situation if Ivanka Trump's family visited Israel and the Jewish authorities did not recognize her as Jewish," Kaplan said.
Zeitler says that he found the recognition of her conversion "somewhat suspicious" after the obstacles they had placed on her.
"But I'm glad that Trump is president and that this can change things," she added in her apartment in Petah Tikva, a city in central Israel where she lives with her husband. “After all, that's the way the world works. Someone super famous and important has to come for there to be changes ”.
