Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, rabbi emeritus of New York City’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and the rabbi who is known for having converted Ivanka Trump, has backed out of his commitment to offer the invocation Monday at the U.S. Republican National Convention.
The rabbi was to offer the prayer in Cleveland but reconsidered out of his growing discomfort with having to deal with anti-Trump elements — including those he has found within his own congregation, according to a report by the New York Sun.
Rabbi Lookstein, who has also served as the head of the modern Orthodox Ramaz High School, said in an announcement that once he was listed as a speaker at the GOP convention “the whole matter turned from rabbinic to political, something which was never intended.”
According to the Sun, it was Ivanka Trump who invited the rabbi to offer the invocation in Cleveland.
But when faced with the naysayers in his own community — and those elsewhere — he reconsidered and instead, publicly released his prayer in a statement to the masses with the hope Ivanka’s father would forgive the move and release him from his commitment.
Rabbi Lookstein has recently experienced his own personal discomfort after having his conversions challenged by the Chief Rabbinical Court of the State of Israel, which backed a decision by the Rabbinical Court of the city of Petach Tikva.
It is possible that he decided he’d simply had his fill of controversy for one season.
The invocation he published, and was to deliver is as follows:
“Eternal God: We thank you for this blessed nation that for 240 years has translated into reality the Biblical command to ‘proclaim liberty throughout the land for all the inhabitants thereof.’ We thank you for our constitutional government that has created and fostered the American ideals of democracy, freedom, justice and equality for all, regardless of race, religion, or national origin...
“Almighty God: We know that we are living in very dangerous times, when all of these blessings are threatened from without, by forces of terror and unimaginable brutality, and from within, by those who sow the seeds of bigotry, hatred and violence, putting our lives and our way of life at risk. And so we pray, Dear God: Help us to form a government which will protect us with sound strategy and steady strength; which will unite us with words of wisdom and acts of compassion; and which will thereby bring peace and harmony, safety and well-being to our beloved America and to all of humankind, and let us all say, Amen.”