President Donald Trump is expected to meet with several Hasidic Jewish rabbis at the White House on Thursday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, according to people familiar with the matter.

The planned Oval Office meeting was initiated by Martin Marks, the White House Jewish liaison, one source told Jewish Insider, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private outreach. Marks did not respond to a text message seeking comment Monday and a White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

The White House has not publicly announced the gathering, which has drawn some resistance from a few Trump allies over reports the meeting will include members of the Satmar community, an anti-Zionist Hasidic sect that believes only the messiah is supposed to bring about a Jewish state.

According to two sources, several leaders from Hasidic communities in New York confirmed their attendance at the meeting, including the two rival Satmar sects in Brooklyn as well as Kiryas Joel; the Bobov sect in Brooklyn; the Vizhnitz sect in Monsey; and the Skver sect in New Square.

The 85-year-old Skver Rebbe, David Twersky, whose endorsements in House elections are highly coveted, will send his son to the meeting in his place, according to a Satmar source.

“As of now it is happening,” one Bobov leader told JI on Monday, but added a caveat that with the Trump administration “things move very quickly” and could change.

Shlomo Schorr, the director of legislative affairs at Agudath Israel of America’s New Jersey office, said he also heard that Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, a dean of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, N.J., the largest yeshiva in the United States, had been invited to the meeting and planned to attend. 

Schorr’s understanding, he told JI, was that the meeting would be “a quick photo op” and provide Trump a chance to wish the Jewish leaders a happy Rosh Hashanah in advance of the Jewish new year next week that marks the start of the High Holy Days.

The Satmar source said that the meeting had “no purpose” aside from a broad recognition of mutual respect. “The president knows this community was strongly supportive of him,” he explained to JI.

Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, who leads the Satmar community in Kiryas Joel, reportedly told followers on Saturday night he planned to ask for Trump’s help opposing the politically divisive Israeli military draft for yeshiva students.

Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who is a close ally of Trump, cited such comments on social media over the weekend while raising her objections to the meeting.

“These are anti-Israel pro-Mamdani rabbis who are being hosted with open arms in the Oval Office,” she said of the Satmar leaders, arguing that the meeting “is going to severely piss off the Jewish Republicans in the MAGA base who voted for President Trump.”

While neither of the Satmar rebbes endorsed Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor, a prominent representative of one sect backed his general election campaign. Leaders of the Satmar community, which frequently endorses Democrats, have also met privately with Mamdani, and Zalman Teitelbaum, the Satmar rebbe in Williamsburg, recently defended the mayor amid accusations of promoting antisemitism.  

Sid Rosenberg, a conservative radio host in New York, agreed with Loomer, calling the meeting a “huge mistake” and criticizing the Kiryas Joel Satmar leader as “a terrible guy” who “has no right being anywhere near” the president.

The Satmar source clarified that he would not raise the draft in the meeting. “He doesn’t plan to bring it up,” he told JI, noting that the rabbi “always shoots from the hip.”