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Meet the top Jewish officials in the Trump administration

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A look at 11 influential members of the tribe who will be working alongside the new president.

American Jews are watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency with both fear and hope.

Many have expressed worries about some of his supporters’ ties to the so-called “alt-right” movement, whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” Those fears intensified when Trump named as his chief strategist Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, a site Bannon once referred to as a “platform” of the alt-right. Trump’s strongly conservative Cabinet picks also back policies on health care, the environment, abortion and civil rights often diametrically opposed to the views of most Jewish voters.

Yet others have praised Trump’s stance on Israel and his nomination of David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who supports West Bank settlement construction and has expressed doubts about the two-state solution, as US ambassador to Israel. Trump won 24% of the Jewish vote, with especially strong support in the Orthodox community.

Here is a look at the president’s Jewish advisers who will be helping to shape US policy for the next four years.

(Trump: "We have to protect Israel")

Jared Kushner

Trump’s Orthodox son-in law is serving as a senior adviser to the president. Kushner, the 36-year-old scion of a prominent real estate family from New Jersey, will not receive a salary and will focus on the Middle East and Israel as well as partnerships with the private sector and free trade, according to The New York Times. A day before his appointment was announced, Kushner said he would step down from his role as CEO of his family firm, Kushner Properties.

Kushner, who married Trump’s daughter Ivanka in 2009, played a crucial role in the president’s campaign, especially on Israel. He worked on Trump’s speech to the AIPAC annual policy conference that earned the real estate mogul a standing ovation, and helped plan a trip to Israel for his father-in-law in 2016 (Trump canceled the trip after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed his call to ban Muslim immigration to the United States).

Trump appears to be smitten with Kushner, often referring to his “fantastic” son-in-law when boasting of his pro-Israel credentials.

Kushner may have become a household name during the campaign, but he’s no stranger to the limelight. In 2006, at 25, he bought the New York Observer newspaper. Two years later he became CEO of Kushner Properties, four years after his father was sent to jail for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering. In 2015, Fortune named Kushner to its 40 Under 40 list, an “annual ranking of the most influential young people in business.”

David Friedman

Friedman, a bankruptcy expert and longtime Trump attorney, was tapped as the US ambassador to Israel. A statement by Trump’s transition team in December said Friedman, who speaks Hebrew, would serve from Jerusalem, but White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week that Trump had yet to decide on moving the embassy from Tel Aviv.

Friedman, who is in his late 50s, is the son of a Conservative rabbi with a family history of ties to Republican presidential candidates — his family hosted Ronald Reagan for a Shabbat lunch in 1984, the year he won re-election. He lives in Woodmere, New York, in the largely Jewish area known as the Five Towns, and owns a home in Jerusalem’s Talbiya neighborhood, according to Israeli media.

Friedman has expressed support for and funded construction in Israeli settlements, and has expressed doubt about the future of the two-state solution, traditionally a pillar of bipartisan US policy in the region.

Some of his controversial statements — including slamming backers of the liberal Israel advocacy group J Street as “far worse than kapos” and charging President Barack Obama with “blatant anti-Semitism” — have sparked outrage from liberal groups.

Jason Greenblatt

Greenblatt, the longtime chief legal officer for the Trump Organization, is working as special representative for international negotiations focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US-Cuba relations and American trade agreements with other countries. An Orthodox Jew and Yeshiva University graduate, Greenblatt studied at a West Bank yeshiva in the mid-1980s and did armed guard duty there.

A father of six from Teaneck, New Jersey, Greenblatt said he speaks with people involved in the Israeli government but has not spoken to any Palestinians since his yeshiva studies. He has cited the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as one of his main sources for staying informed about the Jewish state, and helped draft Trump’s speech at the lobbying group’s annual conference in March.

Greenblatt, who has said he supports the two-state solution, has implied that Trump will take a laissez-faire approach to peace building.

“He is not going to impose any solution on Israel,” Greenblatt told Army Radio in November. He also said that Trump “does not view Jewish settlements as an obstacle to peace.”

Steven Mnuchin

Trump picked Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who worked as Trump’s national finance chairman during the campaign, to serve as Treasury secretary.

Trump and Mnuchin have been friends for 15 years, and prior to being in charge of Trump’s campaign finances, Mnuchin, 54, served as an adviser. Part of what The New York Times describes as one of Manhattan’s “most influential families,” Mnuchin and his father — the prominent art dealer Robert Mnuchin — both became wealthy working at Goldman Sachs. The younger Mnuchin also co-founded the entertainment company RatPac-Dune Entertainment, which has worked on such Hollywood hits as “Avatar” and “Black Swan.”

Some saw Trump teaming up with Mnuchin as unusual, considering that the real-estate mogul had consistently bashed Goldman Sachs during his campaign — but it doesn’t seem to have hindered a good working relationship.

Stephen Miller

Trump named Miller, who has played a crucial role in his campaign by writing speeches and warming up crowds at rallies, as senior adviser for policy.

Miller, who has described himself as “a practicing Jew,” joined the Trump campaign in early 2016, quickly rising through the ranks to become “one of the most important people in the campaign,” as Trump’s campaign manager told The Wall Street Journal.

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Posted : 27/01/2017 6:51 am
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