In keeping with Ashkenazi tradition, the couple have named their newborn in memory of a beloved relative who has passed away
October 1, 2025 11:54
Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss have named their new baby daughter after her paternal great-grandmother Reichel, a Shoah survivor.
The Jewish investor, whose brother Jared is married to Ivanka Trump, and supermodel Kloss, who converted to Judaism ahead of her own wedding, welcomed their third child shortly before Rosh Hashanah and, in keeping with the Ashkenazi tradition of naming newborns in memory of a relative who has passed away, they have called her Rae.
Rae’s namesake Reichel was born in 1923 in Novogrudok – which from 1919 to 1939 was part of Poland – a town that had at the time a large Jewish population, numbering over 6,000. After the 1939 Soviet invasion, her family’s home and business were seized but life did not become intolerable until the Nazi invasion of 1941.
Following several massacres, the much-diminished Jewish population was forced into a ghetto. Reichel lived in the city’s courthouse with her family and approximately 600 other Jews. Her mother and older sister were killed in a subsequent massacre in May 1943. Before long, the Jewish population had dwindled to just 300, and Rae, her father and younger sister were among those who managed to dig and escape through a 600-foot tunnel at night.
Rae was one of 170 survivors; she and her surviving family spent 10 days hiding in the woods, before being taken in by Bielski partisans, the group that served as one of the most significant Jewish resistance efforts against Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
While with the partisans, who saved 1,200 Jews during the war, Rae was reunited with Joseph Kushner, whom she had known prior to the war. They married a year after the Bielski camp was liberated by the Russian army in July 1944.
After the war ended, Rae returned to Novogrudok, only to find it had been destroyed. In 1949, she and Kushner emigrated to New York where they rebuilt their lives. Their son Charles is father to Joshua and Jared.
Joshua married Kloss in 2018 and in addition to Rae, the couple share two sons, Levi, aged four and Elijah, two.
Reichel died in 2004 aged 81.
Last month Aron Bell, the last surviving member of the Bielski brothers, died at his home in Florida, aged 98.
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