But Kushner\u2019s celebrity may be taking a quantum leap now that he\u2019s becoming more involved in his father-in-law\u2019s White House bid.<\/p>\n
Kushner, 35, is no mere footnote to the Donald Trump campaign. He played a key role writing the pro-Israel speech that Trump delivered<\/a> last month to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference. Kushner helped plan a trip to Israel for Trump<\/a> last December, which the candidate abruptly canceled after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Trump\u2019s proposal to block Muslims from immigrating to the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was all your idea!\u201d Trump reportedly scolded his son-in-law<\/a>, according to a source quoted in a New York Magazine story that appeared Sunday. (The Trump campaign told JTA the story was false<\/a>). More often, Trump is pleased with Kushner. He often refers to his \u201cfantastic\u201d son-in-law when touting his pro-Israel bona fides.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a great friend of Israel,\u201d Trump said at a February town hall meeting in Las Vegas<\/a>. \u201cI was the grand marshal of the Israeli Day Parade. \u2026 My son-in-law is Jewish, and he\u2019s fantastic \u2014 a very successful guy in the New York real estate.\u201d<\/p>\n Kushner\u2019s name may carry as much renown in Jewish circles as it does in the world of real estate, where he has helped grow his family\u2019s extensive fortune. The family foundation named for his parents, the Seryl and Charles Kushner Family Foundation<\/a>, gives away more than $2 million a year, and a significant chunk goes to Jewish causes. An Orthodox Jewish elementary school and high school in New Jersey carry the Kushner family name, the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy<\/a>\u00a0and the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, both in Livingston and named for Jared\u2019s Holocaust survivor grandparents.<\/p>\n The family foundation distributed about $2.4 million in 2011, $3.9 million in 2012 and $2.4 million in 2013, the latest year for which data is publicly available. Kushner, who is involved in the foundation, also briefly served as a board member for this news organization (JTA, now under the umbrella of 70 Faces Media<\/a>, is a not-for-profit).<\/p>\n Kushner himself attended high school at the Frisch School, a modern Orthodox yeshiva in Paramus, New Jersey. He later went to Harvard and earned his law degree at New York University.<\/p>\n One of four siblings, Kushner now lives in a stylish apartment<\/a> on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side, belongs to the Orthodox\u00a0Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue<\/a> and is Sabbath observant. His wife underwent an Orthodox conversion to Judaism before the couple wed in October 2009, studying Judaism with Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Kehilath Jeshurun and the Ramaz School. Ivanka Trump told Vogue magazine<\/a> last year that the family keeps kosher and Shabbat \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019re pretty observant,\u201d she said \u2013\u00a0and Kushner noted that his wife often whips up Shabbat dinner.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said, \u2018If we\u2019re going to do Shabbos, I\u2019m going to cook.\u2019 She never cooked before in her life and became a great cook,\u201d Kushner told Vogue. \u201cSo for Friday, she\u2019ll make dinner for just the two of us, and we turn our phones off for 25 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n Ivanka Trump said of her conversion to Judaism, \u201cIt\u2019s been such a great life decision for me. I am very modern, but I\u2019m also a very traditional person, and I think that\u2019s an interesting juxtaposition in how I was raised as well. I really find that with Judaism, it creates an amazing blueprint for family connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple just had their third child, a boy, Theodore James Kushner<\/a>, adding to a family that already included Arabella Rose, 4, and Joseph Frederick, 2. The bris was held last Sunday, but Trump skipped the circumcision ceremony<\/a>\u00a0to campaign in Wisconsin, where he ultimately lost in Tuesday\u2019s primary by 13 points to Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n Kushner ended up in some hot water the day after the bris when New York Magazine reported that Observer editor Ken Kurson read and provided input on Trump\u2019s AIPAC speech<\/a>. Although Kurson suggested his “input” amounted to reading a draft of the speech and discussing it with Kushner, the Observer\u2019s senior political editor, Jillian Jorgensen, said that would not happen again<\/a>. Jorgensen\u00a0wrote that the paper was reviewing its policies on covering the Trump campaign and would begin to cover Trump as it does every other presidential candidate.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing forward, there will be no input whatsoever on the campaign from Mr. Kurson or anyone on the editorial side of the Observer,\u201d Jorgensen said.<\/p>\n The flap is unlikely to faze Kushner, who has had to develop a thick skin over the years.<\/p>\n His family weathered a public scandal in 2004 when Kushner\u2019s father, Charles, was arrested<\/a> on charges of tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering. Among other things, Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law into a tryst that the elder Kushner secretly had taped and mailed to his sister. The setup, part of a long-running family feud, sent Charles Kushner to jail for 16 months.<\/p>\n Jared Kushner, who is said to be fiercely devoted to his father, did not shy away from the spotlight. A student at the time in NYU\u2019s MBA-law program, Kushner accelerated his involvement in his father\u2019s real estate empire, Kushner Companies.<\/p>\n In 2006, when he was just 25, Kushner bought the Observer<\/a> for about $10 million. In 2007, the year after his father got out of prison, Kushner bought a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion \u2013 the most expensive office building sale<\/a> in U.S. history up to that point. In 2008, Kushner became CEO<\/a> of his father\u2019s company.<\/p>\n By all accounts, Kushner is a savvy real estate man. In 2014, Kushner Companies completed more than $2 billion in transactions, including buying 2,000 multifamily apartments on the East Coast, according to Fortune magazine. In 2015, Kushner scored spot No. 25 on Fortune\u2019s 40 under 40 list<\/a> ranking the most influential young people in business.<\/p>\n \u201cReal estate\u2019s today where I spend most of my time, but I also am very active outside our real estate business in other holdings,\u201d Kushner said in a Fortune video. \u201cThe most important thing is working with the right people, people who you trust, people who are talented.\u201d<\/p>\n Now that Kushner\u2019s father-in-law is running for president as a Republican, Kushner has had to switch his political allegiances.<\/p>\n Until very recently, he mostly supported Democrats. Kushner\u2019s Observer endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008. He has made more than $100,000 in donations to Democratic<\/a> committees and candidates, according to widely cited Federal Election Commission records, including a total of $6,000 in donations to Hillary Clinton in 2000 and 2003. Kushner sent $10,000 to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee and $10,000 to the New York State Democratic Committee in 2014, and $20,800 to Cory Booker\u2019s 2013 U.S. Senate campaign in New Jersey. He also made contributions to two other Democratic senators, Charles Schumer of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")