Late Thursday night, Ivanka Kushner, President Trump’s Jewish daughter, went to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in the Cambria Heights section of Queens in New York to pray at the gravesite of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late rabbi and spiritual leader of the global Chabad movement.
Ivanka’s Prayers: Proven to Win Elections
The visit was a repeat of one she paid in November 2016 a few days before her father’s remarkable upset victory over Hillary Clinton. Both visits were low profile and not intended as photo-ops or public relations events.
Rabbi Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or simply as the Rebbe, led the Chabad branch of Hasidic Jews from 1951 until his death in 1994. Under his direction, his followers practiced a form of outreach based on acceptance and devotion. In 1978, the U.S. Congress asked President Jimmy Carter to designate Schneerson’s birthday as the National Education Day. It has been since commemorated as Education and Sharing Day. In 1994, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his “outstanding and lasting contributions toward improvements in world education, morality, and acts of charity.” Schneerson’s resting place, known as “the Ohel” (tent) attracts both Jews and non-Jews for prayer.
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Though the Rebbe never visited Israel, he was very supportive of the Jewish State and was close to many prominent Israelis, most notably Prime Minister Netanyahu who he befriended early in his career.
COLive reported that Ivanka was accompanied by Rabbi Zalman and Toba Grossbaum, directors of Chabad of Livingston in New Jersey, who are close to her husband Jared Kushner, a Senior Advisor to President Trump. The visit came just a few hours after Ivanka watched her father debate his opponent, Joe Biden, at the Curb Event Center in Nashville, Tenessee.
Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner are religiously observant as well as being active and essential elements of the Trump administration. After Trump won the election in 2016, they purchased a home in the Kalorama section of Washington DC in order to be close to the White House and withing walking distance of the Chabad center. Torah law proscribes driving a vehicle on the Sabbath.
