An arts and entertainment writer at the New York Observer published an open letter to its owner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, asking for him to publicly condemn the campaign’s use of “blatant anti-Semitic imagery.”
The article, titled “An Open Letter to Jared Kushner, From One of Your Jewish Employees,” was written by Dana Schwartz and posted on the Observer website Tuesday afternoon.
Schwartz addresses Kushner, who is Jewish, directly and describes the hateful responses she received on social media after calling out Trump’s now infamous (and deleted) Saturday morning tweet, which featured an image of Hillary Clinton set against a backdrop of cash, with “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” written across with a six-pointed star in the foreground.
“Please do not condescend to me and pretend you don’t understand the imagery of a six-sided star when juxtaposed with money and accusations of financial dishonesty,” Schwartz writes. “I’m asking you, not as a ‘gotcha’ journalist or as a liberal but as a human being: how do you allow this? Because, Mr. Kushner, you are allowing this.”
The 35-year-old publisher has been married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who converted to Judaism before their wedding, since 2009. As the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign has progressed, Kushner’s influence within its often muddled hierarchy has grown. A recent New York Times profile described him in its headline as the candidate’s “quiet fixer.”
But Schwartz suggests Kushner is being used, played as a patsy to deflect or deny criticism of what she describes as “your father-in-law’s repeated accidental winks to the white supremacist community.”
“When you stand silent and smiling in the background, his Jewish son-in-law, you’re giving his most hateful supporters tacit approval,” she writes. “Because maybe Donald Trump isn’t anti-Semitic. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think he is. But I know many of his supporters are, and they believe for whatever reason that Trump is the candidate for them.”
In a statement later Tuesday, Kushner defended Trump and dismissed charges of anti-Semitism.
“My father-in-law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife,” he said in an email. “I know that Donald does not at all subscribe to any racist or anti-semitic thinking. 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.”
Schwartz tweeted Kushner’s response, adding, “With all due respect, Mr. Kushner, that wasn’t the point.”