Ivanka's rabbi: Report that I gave Trump permission to fly on Shabbat is fake news

Borrowing a term US President Donald Trump uses often, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein denied the report that he gave Ivanka permission to board the Air Force One on Shabbat.

By JTA

MAY 22, 2017 09:11

Updated: MAY 22, 2017 09:46

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner (photo credit: REUTERS) — Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

(photo credit: REUTERS)

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the prominent modern Orthodox rabbi who oversaw Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism, said he did not give the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, a dispensation to fly on Air Force One on Shabbat.

Lookstein told Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition Zionist Union party, that it was “fake news” that he had given them permission to travel by plane Saturday for President Donald Trump’s first international trip, the Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth reported Sunday. The report was picked up by several Israeli newspapers in advance of Trump’s arrival scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Lookstein also told Herzog, according to Yedioth, that he had not been in contact with Ivanka Trump for several weeks. The couple moved to Washington, DC, shortly after Donald Trump was elected, and both serve as official advisers to the president.

The couple also was seen traveling to meetings by car in Saudi Arabia Saturday.

A White House official said the couple, who are Orthodox Jews, received a rabbinical dispensation to join the president aboard Air Force One when he set off on his first overseas trip Friday, Politico reported Friday. The report named neither the official nor the rabbi, nor did it say who obtained the dispensation or when.

Orthodox Jews observe a Sabbath prohibition on work, motorized travel and the switching on or off of any appliance that uses heat, electricity or fire. As a matter of consensus, the prohibitions do not apply to life-or-death situations or when violating the Shabbat has the potential to save human lives (and according to some decisors, the lives of certain animals under specific circumstances).

Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism in 2008 before her marriage to Kushner.

The couple reportedly also received rabbinic permission to travel in a car in January during the Trump inaugural festivities.