(JTA) — CNN, look what you’ve started.
An article published Friday bears the headline “Ivanka Trump: America’s most powerful Jewish woman.” Authors Maeve Reston and Betsy Klein discuss Ivanka’s Jewishness (her Orthodox conversion, her trip to the Western Wall, yada yada yada) and posit that the president’s daughter is in a unique position to “guide a national conversation about the rising number of threats to Jewish community centers and places of worship.”
The piece, however, doesn’t offer much evidence to back up its headline.
Naturally, commentators on Twitter seized on the opportunity to critique the article and offer their own thoughts on the most powerful Jewish women in America. Federal Reserve head Janet Yellen as well as Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan were frequently named.
https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/870713685462986752
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/870713682292088834
https://twitter.com/peteschroeder/status/870727729531858944
https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/870711956809760769
Journalist Steve Goldstein even quickly wrote an opinion piece in MarketWatch with the headline “No, Ivanka Trump is not the most powerful Jewish woman in America.” His pick? Yellen.
“Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen can, on certain days, be considered the most powerful person, male or female, Jewish or gentile, in the entire world,” Goldstein wrote. “The power of U.S. monetary policy can help create, or take away, millions of jobs and move billions of dollars around the globe, and the Fed chief usually holds sway over the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee, regardless of a dissent or two.”
Actor Zach Braff commented on CNN’s original tweet of the article, suggesting that “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot might actually be the most powerful Jewish woman in the U.S. (despite the fact that she’s Israeli and new to Los Angeles).
https://twitter.com/zachbraff/status/870704618258300928
It has been a rough few days for Ivanka. After taking a break from Twitter during Shavuot, she logged back on Thursday night to mark LGBTQ Pride Month — and was swiftly condemned by gay rights advocates for being “complicit” in the anti-gay policies of the Trump administration.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.