Ivanka Trump, the 27 year-old billionaire heiress is officially part of the tribe. Yesterday the newly Jewish Trump got married to 28 year-old Jared Kushner,
publisher of the New York Observer in an Orthodox ceremony that took place at the Trump National Golf Course in New Jersey.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, Ivanka's conversion mentor for the past year and a half married the couple in front of 500 of their closest friends and relatives, a list that included many prominent names such as former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani and Barabara Walters, and, representing for the Hollywood crowd, Natalie Portman and Russell Crowe.
Before the couple got officially engaged, Ivanka began studying Orthodox Judaism and taking conversion classes at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in N.Y. which according to reports were not always easy on the heiress. She does however maintain that converting has been "an amazing and fulfilling experience."
Rumor has it that the couple's brief break-up in 2008 after more than a year of dating was partially due to concerns from Kushner's family that Trump was not Jewish, though Trump insists that she always felt some affinity with the Jewish people. "One of the jokes I ...started making when Jared and I first started dating is, I'm a New Yorker, I'm in real estate. I'm as close to Jewish, with an 'i-s-h' naturally as anyone can start off." Not long after the couple's reconciliation in 2008, Ivanka began her classes with Rabbi Lookstein.
The invitations to the wedding were printed in both Hebrew and English with a majority of the traditional service taking place in Hebrew in accordance with Jewish tradition.