Avrahm Berkowitz

Local Yeshiva Ketana Boy Heads to the White House

Lenore Davis  January 22, 2017 YESHIVA KETANA OF LONG ISLAND BOY HEADS TO THE WHITEHOUSE

By: Suri Stern

It is with great joy that I announce that Avrahmi Berkowitz, the son of Brynde and Ephraim Berkowitz, brother of Dr. Yehoshua Berkowitz, is headed to Washington as Special Assistant to President Trump, and assistant to Jared Kushner.

Avrahmi is a long-time resident of Lawrence, having started his education at our local Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island school. He is bright, eloquent and charming, and always was. He attended Queens College, and then headed to Harvard Law School, where he naturally excelled.

He met Jared Kushner at a pickup basketball game at a Passover program in Arizona. Jared Kushner is a principle at the Kushner Companies, a real estate conglomerate. They became friends and Avrahmi worked his way up from intern to paid employee at Kushner.

As he graduated law school, he was offered a position at a prestigious global law firm, Gibson & Dunn, and accepted the offer. Just a month shy from starting at Gibson, Avrahmi started working on the Trump Campaign and continued on the trail, while Gibson gave him a deferment.

Trump won, and Jared asked Avrahmi to join the Trump transition team, and then the white house. President Trump is lucky to have such a fine, refined, kind, gentle and brilliant man as Avrahmi Berkowitz on his team.

During his time at Harvard Law, he was a teaching fellow, teaching five classes, including U.S. Government and, ironically, a class entitled The Road to the White House. He is an accomplished pianist and he has a Master rating in speed Chess.

May Brynde and Ephraim have a lifetime of yiddishe nachat from Avrahmi, Yehoshua and future generations.

How Avrahm Berkowitz Landed in the West Wing

Avi Berkowitz with NSA Gen. Mike Flynn - via Twitter/@AviBerkow Avi Berkowitz with NSA Gen. Mike Flynn - via Twitter/@AviBerkow

By JI Staff on Friday, January 20, 2017 · Leave a Comment From a simple game of pickup basketball to a top West Wing position in the Trump White House: For Avrahm (Avi) Berkowitz, an encounter on the court with Jared Kushner at a Passover hotel program in Arizona several years ago has led to a number of unique opportunities. The latest manifestation of this journey was announced Thursday in a Trump press release listing Berkowitz’s new title: Special Assistant to the President and assistant to Senior Advisor Jared Kushner. When Kushner and Berkowitz first met during a Passover program at the historic Arizona Biltmore Hotel, Berkowitz was attending classes at Queens College. The two kept in touch and when Avi graduated, Kushner hired him to join his family’s real estate company where Berkowitz helped manage the firm’s apartment portfolio. Leaving Kushner Companies for Harvard Law School, Berkowitz continued his ties to the family by contributing articles to the New York Observer, a Kushner-owned publication. In his writings, Berkowitz railed against “liberal” intolerance, anti-Semitism at Harvard, while also analyzing the state of the private jet industry. As a member the 2016 Harvard Law School graduating class, Berkowitz intended to join a prestigious New York firm. In the early months of 2016, as Trump and Kushner grew increasingly agitated with their treatment in the press, rumors circulated about the then-candidate’s plans to create a new cable network, to be known as Trump TV. To test the idea, the campaign launched a Facebook Live talk show called Trump Tower Live. Kushner asked Berkowitz to help lead the effort as its Director. By this time, Berkowitz had accepted an offer to join the law firm Bingham McCutchen in the fall of 2016. In the meantime, he agreed to help out his friend on the campaign. As the election heated up, Berkowitz’s position within Trump World grew. He assumed an additional title as Assistant Director of Data Analytics, working closely with the campaign’s Data Director Brad Parscale, a fellow Kushner recruit. Understanding their soon-to-be associate’s role, Bingham McCutchen allowed Berkowitz to postpone the start of his new job until after the election.

On November 8th, along with many other ramifications, the 27-year-old’s career trajectory changed. Quickly forgetting the thought of becoming a first year associate, Berkowitz was instead headed to DC and, more specifically, to the West Wing of the White House to serve as Kushner’s deputy. On Thursday, Trump suggested that Kushner would serve as a mediator for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, saying “If [Kushner] can’t produce Middle East peace, nobody can.” While some reports suggested that Trump and Kushner were annoyed with AIPAC’s apology at its Policy Conference last year (after a number of AIPAC delegates cheered when Trump attacked President Obama, calling him “the worst thing ever to happen to Israel”), the new Administration doesn’t appear to be holding any grudges. In fact, to the contrary, Berkowitz’s first cousin is former AIPAC President Howard Friedman. David Cordish serves on AIPAC’s National Board. His son Reed, also a friend of Kushner, was appointed this week to serve as Assistant to the President for Intragovernmental and Technology Initiatives. How Trump’s White House and Kushner’s West Wing will operate is anyone’s guess but no one can deny the power of a pickup basketball game. If nothing else, expect to see activity on the White House basketball court come next Passover.