MELVILLE, New York — Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. Among the speakers at the ceremony was Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University. Berman prayed that Trump and Vice President Vance “choose the right and the good, unite us around our foundational biblical values of life and liberty, service and sacrifice, and especially of faith and morality.”
The first time that clergy offered prayers at a presidential inauguration was in 1937, when Franklin Roosevelt’s second inauguration included an invocation by Chaplain ZeBarney Thorne Phillips and a benediction by Father John A. Ryan. The first rabbi to participate was at Harry Truman’s inauguration in 1949, when Rabbi Samuel Thurman of the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis offered a prayer. Since then, most, but not all, presidential inaugurations have included a rabbi in the ceremony. What rabbi spoke at a presidential inauguration and then at a later time criticized that President?