9 Shocking Facts About Ivanka Trump's Husband, Jared Kushner
There's more than meets the eye.
Getty Images Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump is married to one of Trump's closest advisors, Jared Kushner.
Jared, in addition to being beyond handsome, is well-spoken, well-educated, and no stranger to dealing with important business decisions and strategies.
In 2015 he was named one of Fortune Magazine's 40 Under 40.
But that's not all there is to know about Jared Kushner. We've investigated his background and came up with some pretty interesting stuff.
Here are nine things you need to know about Jared Kushner. And some of them are pretty shocking.
1. He's religious, and Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judasim before they got married.
Jared Kushner is a practicing Orthodox Jew.
When Kushner and his now-wife Ivanka Trump broke up briefly in 2008, many speculated that it was because his parents did not approve of his Presbyterian bride.
When the couple married in 2009 it was after Ivanka converted to Judaism.
Ivanka and Jared keep the Sabbath (Shabbat) on the weekends. This means no cell phones and no cars from sundown on Friday to Sunday on Saturday.
When his father-in-law's Access Hollywood "grab them by the pussy" scandal erupted, he received a dispensation from his rabbi to help his father-in-law out.
He and Ivanka also received a dispensation from their rabbi in order to participate in the inauguration events.
2. He went to Harvard — some people say unfairly.
But only after his dad made a 2.5 million dollar donation both he and his brother were accepted to the prestigious school.
Now I'm not saying Kushner wasn't qualified and accepted into the school on his own merits (although that is a popular theory), but it's definitely something worthy of notice.
In fact, investigative reporter Daniel Golden wrote a whole book about this phenomenon of rich kids and kids of influential people getting into fancy colleges because of preferential treatment.
Years before Donald Trump even considered running for office, Golden profiled the Kushners and their relationship with Harvard for his book.
Golden wrote:
“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”
You can read more in the article and decide for yourself.
3. He's ultra-rich. But you knew that, right?
Jared is the son of Charles Kushner.
In 1985 Charles started Kushner Companies, a real estate development company which quickly skyrocketed into being a million dollar enterprise.
With that fortune came privilege. While his Harvard classmates walked around or took the T, Kushner drove a Range Rover.
See #2 for why this mattered so much to people.
4. He doesn't think Trump hates Jews.
When Donald Trump tweeted (and then quickly deleted) an image invoking a white supremacist image with stacks of cash and a six-pointed star, Kushner was one of the first people to leap to his defense.
He insisted that his father in law doesn't hate Jews, even talking about his grandparents who survived the Holocaust, something that angered some of his staff and people close to him. One staffer of his newspaper, The Observer, tweeted: "Mr Trump's tweet was seen as a winking promise to this nation's worst and most hateful individuals."
Kushner responded with, "I have personally seen him embrace people of all racial and religious backgrounds. The suggestion that he may be intolerant is not reflective of the Donald Trump I know."
5. His father has been arrested ... and seems like he might be a bit on the scary side.
In 2008, Charles Kushner was arrested for serious tax fraud, witness tampering, and for illegal campaign donations.
Yikes!
Not only that, but Charles Kushner was involved in all sorts of other scandals at this time. "The intrafamily acrimony was such that Mr. Kushner retaliated against his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities, by hiring a prostitute to seduce him. He then arranged to have a secretly recorded videotape of the encounter sent to his sister, the man's wife."
Whoa. That's ... dark.
Regardless, his father being sentence to two years in prison forced Jared to step up and take on more responsibility for his family business.
6. His brother doesn't share his political beliefs.
Jared's brother Josh Kushner is married to model Karlie Kloss.
But Josh isn't your average model-dating millionaire, he's passionate about many political issues.
Just not the same issues as his brother.
Josh was spotted participating in the Women's March on Washington, albeit as a spectator and not a participant.
Josh is a passionate, lifelong democrat who did is reported NOT to have voted for his sister-in-law's father for President.
Josh voted for Hillary Clinton.
A source close to Josh clarified that he did not intend to protest, and was actually just walking through his neighborhood during the march.
Sure, Josh. Sure.
7. He wants to use technology to help the world — and ultimately the United States.
When Jared became the publisher for The Observer, he ended their print services and focused on building up their ditial site with great success.
Making the internet accessible to everyone is something he is driven to get done.
He told Fortune magazine, "Right now, I'm very passionate about internet and figuring out ways to bring more broadband and internet to areas that don't have it.
It's crazy when you think about our country and the tech revolution that we're going through right now, that there's still a very major part of our country that doesn't have access to internet.
That's one of the things in our country that if we can solve over the next, hopefully, decade, I think we'll be able to find that we can bring a lot more opportunity and hopefully prosperity to our country.
8. He's super-private.
He might love the internet, but that doesn't mean you're going to find Jared Kushner all over social media.
The only social media account he has is with Twitter and it's got exactly zero (that's right, zero) tweets.
He sometimes pops up on Ivanka's Instagram account, but if you think you're going to find any social media dirt on the guy, then you are absolutely barking up the wrong tree.
No rogue tweets coming from this guy. That's for sure.
9. The main word people use to describe him is "polite".
Guys, he's so polite it's actually one of the first things people who have met him talk about.
His good lucks and stellar manners have even made his father-in-law Donald Trump sit up and take notice.
"If you can't make peace in the middle east" he has said, "no one can!"
Peggy Siegel, a top publicist, didn't hold back when talking to Vanity Fair about the guy. "Besides being devastatingly handsome, he is well mannered, well bred, and so well turned out."