Trump’s Media Troubles Said to Coincide with Kushners’ Shabbos Observance

by Barney Breen-Portnoy – Algemeiner

It was “not a coincidence” that new President Donald Trump’s media troubles surged last Saturday — when his Orthodox Jewish son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was observing Shabbat — a source close to the Trump family told Vanity Fair in an article published on Tuesday.

“He wasn’t rolling calls on Saturday when this happened,” the source was quoted as saying, referring to the 36-year-old Kushner’s activities the day after Trump’s inauguration, when the president and his press secretary got into a tiff with the media about the size of the crowds at the previous day’s events in the nation’s capital.

The effect of Kushner’s Shabbat observance on his father-in-law’s behavior has been noted before. A Huffington Post profile of Kushner’s wife Ivanka Trump published in September cited a friend of the couple as saying that the then-presidential candidate’s “worst tweets” during the election campaign happened when his daughter and son-in-law were “off the grid observing the Sabbath or another Jewish holiday.”

“It could be a big problem if the people who make our president not crazy aren’t available one day a week,” the friend said.

However, as reported by the New York Times, Kushner did go to Trump Tower in Manhattan on a Saturday in early October to consult with his father-in-law just after the scandal broke over the publication of the “Access Hollywood” tape on which Trump was heard making lewd comments about women.

Among the other tasks Kushner will be assigned in the coming years, Trump has said he will be given the mission of brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

“If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” Trump told Kushner at a pre-inauguration event in Washington, DC last week. “All my life I’ve been hearing that’s the toughest deal in the world to make. And I’ve seen it, but I have a feeling that Jared is going to do a great job.”

13 Comments

  • tweet tweet

    Maybe Pres Trump should put away is tweet machine and other electronic devices on Shabbos.

    Tweet Tweet :)

    And it may not be in Am Yisroel best interests for Jared to be the broker. It seems that will be a job for the Moshiach himself. He’s the only one who could do it.

    V’dal
    From the little birdie in Oak Park. I shpy :)

  • Anonymous

    Clever story but on a serious side, kischners lack of understanding re Shabbos observance is at best questionable. Making an appearance in church on Shabbos, frequently riding to and from activities, bowling at the White House, attending and dancing at the inauguration Seems using his iPhone is the least of it

  • DeClasse' Intellectual

    Since day one, the media has been outright anti-
    Trump and by most of them, he can do no right!!!!

    • Amused Observer

      Yes, how dare the media report the actual words which come out of Trump’s mouth and the actual tweets which Trump posts!

      And point out his seemingly never-ending stream of lies.

  • @3

    AL TODIN ES CHAVERCHA!
    Do not judge your fellow.

    Ask yourself: if your secret personal life was as publicly known as his, and what you do on shabbos etc.. in private…
    how would you like to be publicly judged as you are judging him now.

    —-
    3, post your answer, i’ll be looking out for it.

  • Andrea Schonberger

    I taped the Inauguration to see it on Saturday evening–Jared and Ivanka were dancing at the Inaugural Ball on Shabbos. I read, on The Forward I think, that they got a “dispensation” from an important unnamed Rabbi to break Shabbos as this was a major occasion. Do any of your readers know anything about this? Who’s the Rabbi? Do Rabbis give dispensations for any reason?

    • Yitzchok

      What’s wrong with Dancing on Shabbos?

      This is nobody’s business but their own, if they got a heter then they got a heter and it’s between them and their Rov and between the The Rov and Hashem. It has nothing to do with you.

    • Milhouse

      They didn’t need a heter to dance. They got a heter to be driven by a non-Jewish driver, which is normally not allowed, but there’s enough wiggle room to make a heter possible for an important enough reason.

      It was not reported who gave the heter, but I assume they ask all their shaylos of Rabbi Lookstein, so he would have been the one to give this heter, and he is certainly enough of a talmid chochom to do so.

  • Moroccan

    Rabbi Yedidya Monsonego A`H was Chef Rabbi in Morocco. One year, the King held a major event on Shabbos and everybody invited had to go. The Rav lived in a different city but he would not be Mechalel Shabbos .He stayed in a house belonging to a Yid about 3 miles or more from the Palace to be able to walk there. Even though , he was 80 years or more, he didn’t look for a Heter.

    • Milhouse

      and if there were nowhere to stay within walking distance, or if it were dangerous to walk, what would he have done? If the king sent a driver to pick him up, would he have refused to go? One does what one can, but in there are many heterim available for shtadlonim.

  • Moroccan

    He would certainly not went to dancing Friday night.
    To seat there may be but to add dancing ………