Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff visit the Western Wall
Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff visited the Western Wall ahead of hostage release plans included in the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire.
- Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism after dating her current husband, Jared Kushner.
- Donald Trump highlighted his daughter’s conversion in a recent speech to the Israeli parliament.
- Ivanka Trump recently visited Israel, visiting the Western Wall and speaking at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.
President Donald Trump spotlighted his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, during his speech at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on October 13th.
The president traveled to the Middle East to greet Israeli hostages released as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that the United States helped broker.
Donald Trump said of his son-in-law: “I want to give a special thank you to someone who loves Israel so much. In fact, he loves Israel so much that his daughter converted.” “They have a great marriage and are very close. They are best friends.”
Ivanka Trump and Kushner both served as advisers to President Trump during his first term, but have been largely absent from Washington this year. Compared to President Trump’s high-profile mentions in Congress, Ivanka is typically more circumspect about her faith. Here’s what we know:
Did Ivanka Trump convert to Judaism?
yes. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is Jewish and converted before they married in 2009.
In a 2015 interview with Vogue, she said she avoided discussing her faith publicly, instead finding it deeply personal.
“We’re pretty observant, more than some people and less than others, and we feel like that’s a very intimate thing for us,” she said. “This was a great life decision for me. I’m very modern, but I’m also very traditional, and I think that’s an interesting juxtaposition in my upbringing as well. I really found that Judaism creates a great blueprint for family connections.”
In her 2017 book, Working Women: Rewriting the Rules for Success, she discussed observing the Jewish Sabbath with your family and spending that time spending time together.
Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner is Jewish
Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner’s religion is Orthodox Judaism.
Kushner wrote in his 2022 memoir, “Breaking History,” that he once broke up with Ivanka Trump over religious differences. But the two got back together, and by the time Kushner met Donald Trump for lunch in hopes of forging a stronger bond, she was already on the verge of a change of heart, he wrote.
Kushner and Ivanka Trump were married in 2009 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“He respected Jewish traditions and asked Ivanka to wear a yarmulke before she walked down the aisle,” Kushner wrote of her father-in-law in his memoir.
Ivanka Trump takes a step back from politics after her first term
Ivanka Trump served as a senior adviser to the president during his first term and frequently appeared alongside him. By the end of her term, she came under attack for assuming an unofficial diplomat-like role on important foreign trips. Kushner was also a senior adviser to the president.
Ivanka Trump is the eldest of the president’s two daughters. Her mother was Donald Trump’s first wife Ivana, who died in 2022. Her two brothers, also born to Ivana, are Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who manage the Trump Organization. Before her father first went to the White House, Ivanka Trump also served as executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
When her father announced his re-election in 2022, she posted on Instagram that she loves him but is prioritizing her three young children this time. At a time when the 45th president was somewhat politically marginalized, Ivanka Trump was called to testify before a House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the New York civil fraud scandal.
“Politics is a pretty dark world,” she said on “The Lex Fridman Podcast” in July 2022, according to CNN. “Politics is a pretty dark world. There’s a lot of darkness, there’s a lot of negativity, and it’s totally at odds with what’s comfortable for me as a human being.” “And, you know, this is really hard work. So I think it’s right for me and my family not to participate.”
Ivanka Trump may be out of the spotlight during President Donald Trump’s second term, but she’s not completely out of the picture in her father’s return to power. In fact, she attended a UFC fight in Newark with her father in June in Newark and in Miami this summer, and a photo shows her with the president chatting with UFC CEO Dana White at a jersey game.
She’s also reportedly helping host a UFC fight at the White House to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Ivanka Trump visits the Western Wall with Steve Witkoff
Ivanka Trump traveled with Donald Trump on his first foreign trip as president in 2017, stopping at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He became the first sitting president to pray against a wall.
Ivanka Trump posted on social media in 2017 that she was “grateful to have experienced such a meaningful visit to the most sacred site of my faith and to have left a personal prayer note.” CNN reported that it was a rare moment for the eldest daughter, who has usually been cautious about her faith, to express her religion in public.
On October 10, she posted a similar photo of herself facing a wall on her Instagram account. Kushner and US envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff also visited the Western Wall before the Israeli hostages were freed.
“We are very happy. With the president’s arrival, there will be peace and many lives will be saved,” Witkoff said.
According to Reuters, the three also addressed a crowd at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square on October 11.
“And the president wanted me to say, as he has said to so many of you personally, that I see you, I hear you, and I will always be on your side,” Ivanka Trump said.
Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Please contact kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky (@kinseycrowley.bsky.social).
