US President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was the “man behind the curtain, pulling the strings,” and responsible for Trump’s victory, according to an editorial in Haaretz last week. Kushner also is purportedly no ordinary puppet master, but one with a “near-Machiavellian ambition and a taste for the tawdry beneath his guileless, even pristine veneer.”

The editorial’s title is even more dramatic: “Jared Kushner’s Rise to Power: How the Son of a Scandalous Billionaire Became Trump’s Man Behind the Curtain.”

The overall description of Mr. Kushner as a puppet-master behind the scenes operating under aspirations of power almost suggests a figure emanating out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a set of anti-Semitic protocols published in Russia over a century ago that detail a surreptitious plan of Jewish global domination.

Ironically, the editorial makes it clear that Kushner cannot possibly be such a puppet master, albeit based upon an implicit, faulty assumption about Trump’s son-in-law. The editorial suggests that Trump’s son-in-law, a modern-Orthodox Jew, bears some responsibility for an uptick in anti-Semitism across the US during the campaign, as well as an alleged failure on his part to tackle and respond to anti-Semitic sentiment among some of Trump’s supporters.

Referencing an opinion among “many Jews of those on the left and center,” Kushner’s guilt lies with him “as as the embodiment of an isolationist, shteytel mentality that sanctions intolerance as long as it isn’t directed at Jews or Israel.” And for that supposedly apparent mentality, an anonymous “childhood friend” quoted in the article says that Kushner’s grandfather, a Holocaust survivor “would be very upset if he were alive today, to see his grandson enabling the hate.”

Just why would Kushner decide to be an “enabler of hate?” Referencing an anonymous political consultant and strategist, the author explains that Kushner has taken upon himself a campaign of his own, “call it the revenge of the nebach.” Kushner’s status as a “nebach,” a Yiddish term referring to an individual experiencing misfortune, apparently traces back to his misfortune of being the son of a convict, a “disgraced macher,” a yiddish term with negative connotations of an influential person.

The son of the “disgraced macher” was handed the responsibility of not only fixing his family’s mess by assuming control of his father’s real estate firm, “Kushner’s Companies,” but also of being a macher himself by purchasing the New York Observer in an attempt to “rehabilitate the Kushner name by trying to control the beast he blamed for tarnishing it- the press.”

It was apparently this “nebach” mentality that made Kushner a match for the Trump family, and more specifically for Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who the editorial describes as a “shiksa goddess,” yet another derogatory yiddish term, for a non-Jewish woman.

This evaluation of Jared Kushner’s deep, internal and perhaps subconscious mentality that allegedly drove him to be a figure with an ambition for power at the expense of his own people, is no doubt an interesting and creative one. However, it is demonstrably nothing more than speculation.

No psychological experts are ever quoted or referenced. Instead, this assessment of Jared Kushner relies largely on anonymous sources, “insiders” and former employees of Kushner who have an apparent conflict of interest such as Aaron Gell, a former editor-in-chief of the Observer who was hired and eventually fired by Kushner and was quoted as describing Trump’s son-in-law as “insecure about his intellect.”

Another example in the editorial references “insiders” who describe Kushner as “a publisher who had contempt for the press and showed no interest in operating a respectable news source, but rather a tool to further his family’s profile” in a faulty attempt to foretell how a Trump administration could very well function.

The author posits that “if Jared’s tenure at the Observer can be viewed as a crystal ball offering a glimpse into the Trump White House, it shows an administration run by ego, greed, opacity and nepotism.” But what is the value of a “crystal ball,” particularly if it relies on the accounts of many anonymously cited sources? It is nothing more than speculation about what can happen.

If we are to assume that Kushner will be some mastermind pulling the puppet strings behind Trump’s agenda, a similar argument could very well be made about Kushner’s potentially positive and beneficial role in a Trump White House. Ironically, the author briefly touches upon some of his good attributes.

Although she brushes off the possibility that Kushner would be a competent White House aide in light of the “nebach” mentality primarily driving him to rekindle his family’s honor, the author writes that Kushner had “a cool competence, grace under pressure and familial devotion” while he was under duress at the time of his father’s conviction.

These three characteristics of any White House aide would in fact be very beneficial for any White House aide and for any administration during high-pressure situations. Gell is also quoted as saying that Kushner “plays things remarkably close to the vest, which seems like a good quality for a White House advisor.”

It remains to be seen just how much influence Kushner will ultimately have in the Trump Administration and even what kind of impact he will have. All one can do right now is speculate.