#955: L’shana Tovah Ivanka . . . May We Ask a Favor Of You?

On behalf of my wife and family, as well as our chavurah (our “synagogue without walls”), please accept our best wishes for you, your husband Jared and children Arabella Rose, Joseph Fredrick and Theodore James a shana tovah u’mtukah - A Happy and Sweet New Year. So where did you celebrate Rosh Hashana? With Rabbi Lookstein at Kehilat Jeshrun on the Upper East Side, or in your newish mansion in Miami Dade on Rock Creek Island (affectionately known to locals as “Billionaire Bunker”) I’ve occasionally wondered how far a walk it is from your place to the closest orthodox shul. Actually, it’s none of my business. I’m not casting any aspersions: if you walk on Shabbos and Yontuf, mazal tov; if not, that’s your decision. I have long been in step with the concept of חזקת לאדם כשר (chezkaht l’adam kashair) roughly translated as, “if one says he/she is a ‘kosher Jew,’ who am I to question?” In any event, our good wishes that you be both written and sealed in G-d’s Book of Life” goes without question.

I’ve longed wondered what your father thought when you announced you were going through an Orthodox conversion in order to marry Jared. I mean, despite the fact that your dad has long been associated with - and employed - Jewish people like Roy Cohn, Alan Weisselberg and Michael Cohen, and then more recently , the likes of Steven Miller and Steve Mnuchin, his background and upbringing weren’t precisely what one would call “pro-Semitic” or “Jew-friendly.” From what I understand about your grandpa Fred (and this according to your Aunt Mary), he was a thorough-going anti-Semite. ‘Tis a pity; but by now you know that despite what our detractors try to sell, we’re really a pretty kind and moral bunch, whose love of justice, mercy and humility are part of the very fabric of our religious and cultural being.

You well know that for Jews, this is a very, very important time of year; a period of reflection, atonement and spiritual growth. What we do, what we say and indeed, what we confess to, are meant to make better, more honest and more caring people of us all. These “Ten Days of Repentance”, as they are called, are difficult ones; they are far, far more difficult than the “resolutions” people make on December 31st and then forego by January 2nd. One of the concepts you no doubt learned at the feet of Rabbi Lookstein during the year-and-a-half you studied with him for conversion was that of תיקן עולם (tikun olam -literally “repairing the world”), which commands us to do everything in our power to bring truth, understanding and love to the world, and well as erasing untruths, bigotry and baseless hatred,

At this point, we come to the “favor” mentioned in the title of this post. As you well know, it is customary at this time of the year for people in the political arena - both those holding and those running for office - to release greetings to the Jewish people. 99% of these messages are cheerful, inclusive, positive, and politically non-partisan. Your father, as again you well know, broke virtually ever rule of good taste and comity by choosing to attack and defame an overwhelming majority of the American Jewish community on Rosh Hashana. This past Sunday, as many of us were getting ready to lead or attend services for the second day of the Jewish New Year, he decided to put in his two cents by posting on Truth Social: “Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!”

Sad to say Mrs. Kushner, that although your father’s Rosh Hashana post was both maddening and totally inappropriate, it really was not out of keeping with the anti-Jewishness that lurks in the recesses of his troubled soul. I mean, this is the man – along with his deputies (most of whom no longer work with/for him) who:

Tweeted Hillary Clinton’s face next to a Star of David and the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever”

Closed his 2016 campaign with an ad that included the images of three Jewish people—George Soros, Janet Yellen, and Lloyd Blankfein—while warning that a secretive “global power structure” was to blame for economic policies that have “robbed our working class“ and “stripped our country of its wealth”
Waited to specifically condemn the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally during which marchers carried Nazi signs and chanted things like “Jews will not replace us”
Called Jews who didn’t vote for him dumb and/or traitors
Declared in a tweet that Jewish voters “don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore”
Suggested that Jews only care about money
Baselessly suggested that Soros, a favorite bogeyman among white nationalists and neo-Nazis, was funding a migrant caravan
Hosted a White House Hanukkah party that featured an evangelical pastor who once said Jews were going to hell
Told a room full of Jewish people that Jews are “brutal killers” and “not nice people at all”
Suggested Jews control the media
Said that Jews are “only in it for themselves,” following phone calls with Jewish lawmakers
Reportedly wanted his military leaders to operate like “the German generals in World War II”
Reportedly told his chief of staff that Adolf Hitler “did a lot of good things” and shouldn’t be judged by that one genocide
Kept a book of Hitler’s speeches next to his bed

His Rosh Hashana post touted the one thing he ever did for Israel: relocating the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And for that one act (which had been mandated by the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995) he claimed that he was “the best friend Israel ever had in the White House.” (Please don’t tell Presidents Truman or Clinton that). This is far from the truth and shows that your father believes that the only thing Jewish voters remember or care about is this single act. The fact that an overwhelming majority of American Jews still vote for Democrats like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, as well as Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Chuck Schumer et al, shows how little your father understands about the American Jewish community. It also shows that when all is said and done, he cares not a fig for anyone who questions or finds fault with him. Truth to tell, there is no truth for him to tell.

As you well know, Ivanka, your father has no consistent political philosophy. Rather, he adopts and adapts whatever will be best for his political career. Once a strong supporter of (and contributor to) Planned Parenthood, today he is as vehemently pro-life as any White Christian Nationalist. His positions on a wide array of political issues change with the political winds. He judges things only to the extent that they will benefit him personally, and not, G-d forbid, to how they will affect the betterment of the country, the world or the planet. His plans for the future - assuming the worst - is that all three branches of the federal government will be whittled down until those who remain in the federal bureaucracy will share but a single trait: blind loyalty to Trumpian nihilism and anarchy.

So what is the favor we so humbly ask of you? Only that you speak truth to power and make it known that your father represents a clear and present danger to the vast majority of American Jews as well as anyone and everyone who firmly believes in the concept of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” At this critical point in time, few if any Republicans of stature have the guts or courage it takes to denounce DJT for the mean-spirited, plastic-political, autocrat-loving bundle of personal wounds who dares to present himself as the cure for all the challenges we face.

Yael saving the people from Sisera - C. 1620 by **Artemisia Gentileschi**

And so, Yael bat Avraham avinu (if I may be so bold as to call you by your Hebrew name), perhaps the time has come for you to screw up your courage and sense of moral outrage - just like your Biblical namesake Yael, the wife of Chever (יָעֵל אֵשֶׁת-חֶבֶר) as found in the book of Judges (verses 4:11-22) - and become both a savior and a heroine. No, not by driving a tent stake through the forehead of Sisera, the murderous Canaanite general, but rather by standing up for the people who lovingly gave you welcome into our ancient fold. You must speak out against anti-Semitism and bigotry; you must fight against the powers that would seek to endanger your children’s future. Should you speak, you will find thousands of your sisters standing alongside you . . . sort of a collective Yael and Deborah, the “Thelma and Louise” of the Hebrew Bible. You are in a unique position to do a ton of good for the Chosen People, of whom you are part and parcel . . . I trust.

Wishing you and yours גמר חתימה טובה (g’mar kha-te-mah tova) that you be sealed in the Book of Life in this the New Year 5784.