Ivanka Trump visited the Warsaw Ghetto memorial Thursday during a visit to Poland with her father, President Donald Trump.
Ivanka, who serves as an adviser to the president, converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, in 2009. Kushner also serves as a presidential adviser.
The president’s daughter participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial site for victims of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising and recited Kaddish—the Jewish mourner’s prayer—with Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich. Ivanka also toured the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is adjacent to the memorial.
Schudrich said Ivanka’s visit to the memorial site was “very, very important … not only because she’s a Jew, because her grandparents-in-law are survivors of the Holocaust, but also as a human being it’s important.”
At the same time, the chief rabbi lamented that President Trump was the first U.S. president in 25 years not to visit the Warsaw Ghetto memorial during an official trip to Poland. In a joint statement, Schudrich and Polish Jewish community leaders Wednesday said they “deeply regretted” Trump’s decision not to stop at the Holocaust memorial. The president was in Poland to meet with regional leaders and to deliver a speech in Warsaw’s Krasinski Square, ahead of attending his first G20 summit in Hamburg. {eoa}
This article was originally published at JNS.org. Used with permission.
