Martin Marks, who oversaw President Donald Trump’s efforts to win over Jewish voters in the 2024 election, has recently begun serving as the White House liaison to the Jewish community, a White House spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider on Thursday. 

Marks’ appointment to the role is a shift for Trump, who did not appoint a Jewish liaison in his first term, instead opting for son-in-law Jared Kushner to informally serve in that role, alongside former antisemitism special envoy Elan Carr. 

“President Trump is committed to restoring peace through strength, bringing the hostages home and combatting antisemitism at home and abroad,” Taylor Rogers, the White House assistant press secretary, said in a statement to JI. “The White House Faith Office is delivering on the President’s promise to protect religious freedom for Americans of all faiths, including Jewish Americans.”

Marks’ formal title is special assistant to the president and director of Jewish engagement in the White House Faith Office, which is headed by Pastor Paula White, who gave a shout-out to Marks at a National Day of Prayer Event at the White House on Thursday. Marks did not respond to a request for comment.

“Martin is a friend and a terrific advocate for our community. On a personal level, the only reason a Jewish student spoke about antisemitism at the [2024] Republican National Convention is because of Martin. He knew how important it was,” said Shabbos Kestenbaum, a former Harvard student who is suing the school over allegations of antisemitism. Marks also coordinated Trump’s visit to the Ohel, the grave of the Chabad Rebbe, in Queens, on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. 

Historically, the Jewish liaison has acted as a conduit between presidents and the American Jewish community, responsible for understanding and communicating their diverse concerns to the White House. Marks takes on the role as Trump makes tackling antisemitism a top priority of his second administration, although Jewish communal reaction to his policies has been mixed. Marks will also likely field Jewish community members’ reaction to the ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations and to the war in Gaza. 

Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, said Marks has been instrumental in understanding Jewish communal concerns about the Trump administration’s freeze on funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars to vulnerable nonprofits including synagogues and Jewish community centers.  

“We’ve been trying to shake that loose for several weeks, and Martin has been very, very helpful with that,” said Diament, who declined to share whether the White House has given him confirmation that the funds will, in fact, be resumed. “He’s been a good facilitator in terms of getting issues in front of the people that need to hear about them.”

Marks organized a Passover event at the White House in April, with Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), ensuring that the food was entirely kosher for Passover. Several dozen people attended, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“It’s heartening to see the regard with which the faith operation in the White House is approaching the Jewish component of American life,” Shemtov told JI. “Many senior White House staff came [to the event], most of them Jewish. One of the Cabinet secretaries and a few other senior administration officials showed up. Forty people, maybe 50, and they ate kosher-for-Passover food and celebrated our faith. Sometimes people don’t understand that the United States of America is 98% not Jewish.”

Prior to joining the Trump campaign last year, Marks’ political experience included a brief congressional bid in 2022, when he entered the Republican primary to unseat Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), though he dropped out before voting began. His mother, handbag designer Lana Marks, served as U.S. ambassador to South Africa in Trump’s first term, and Marks was her “senior advisor and chief strategist” during her confirmation hearings, according to a biography on his campaign website. He moved with her to Pretoria to continue serving as an informal advisor. 

He earned an MFA at New York University and worked as a writer for years, publishing articles in media outlets including Vanity Fair and The New Yorker’s humor section. He later opened a yoga studio in Palm Beach, where he grew up. His family has been part of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club for decades. The family said they joined the club because, at the time, many other private Palm Beach clubs did not allow Jews to become members.