November 7, 2008

Personal life of Rahm Emanuel

WIKIPEDIA

Rahm Emanuel (Hebrew: ?? ???????) was born in Chicago, Illinois. His first name, Rahm, means “high” or “lofty” in Hebrew[8], while his last name, Emanuel, means “God is with us.” His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and former member of the Irgun[9][10] (Irgun Zeva’i Le’ummi), a militant Zionist group treated as a terrorist organization during British rule. His mother, Martha Smulevitz, worked as an X-ray technician and was the daughter of a local union organizer.[2] She became a civil rights activist; she was also once the owner of a Chicago-area rock and roll club.[11] The two met in Chicago in the 1950s.[12] Emanuel’s older brother, Ezekiel, is an oncologist and bioethicist, and his brother Ari is a talent agent in Los Angeles who inspired Jeremy Piven’s character Ari Gold on the HBO series Entourage.[2] Emanuel himself is the inspiration for the character Josh Lyman on The West Wing.[2] He also has a younger sister named Shoshanna, 14 years his junior.[2]

When his family lived in Chicago, he attended Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, a Jewish day school. After his family moved to Wilmette, he attended public school: Romona School, Wilmette Junior High School, and New Trier West High School.[12][13] He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1981, and went on to receive a master’s degree in Speech and Communication from Northwestern University in 1985. While still an undergraduate, he joined the congressional campaign of David Robinson of Chicago.[citation needed]

His father, still practicing near Chicago, emigrated to the United States from Israel. Emanuel volunteered as a civilian volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1991 Gulf War, serving in one of Israel’s northern bases, rust-proofing brakes.[14][15]

Emanuel’s wife Amy Rule, a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism shortly before her wedding.[14] They are members of Anshe Shalom, a modern Orthodox congregation in Chicago.[16] They have three children, son Zacharias and daughters Ilana and Leah.

Emanuel is a long time close friend of fellow Chicagoan David Axelrod, Chief Strategist for the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign. Axelrod signed the ketubah at Emanuel’s wedding, an honor that goes to a best friend.[17]

Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation, is quoted as saying: “It’s a very involved Jewish family”; “Amy was one of the teachers for a class for children during the High Holidays two years ago.”[16] Emanuel has said of his Judaism: “I am proud of my heritage and treasure the values it has taught me.”[16] Emanuel’s family lives on the North Side of Chicago, in the North Center neighborhood.[8]

Emanuel trains for and participates in triathlons.[18]

Posted by Ted Belman @ 3:02 am | 20 Comments »

20 Responses to Personal life of Rahm Emanuel

  1. yamit82 says:

    His Hebrew name Rahm means higH, lofty, elevated. If he had a different spelling like RAM which means thunder we could call the duo in Hebrew THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

    Barack if it were a Hebrew name, means Lightning.

    Storm warnings?

    Free republic

    Read what some of America thinks. Interesting times!

  2. yamit82 says:

    Point Man on granting China Most Favored Nation trade designation
    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020401/nichols

    Father was a member of the Irgun terrorist organization responsible for bombing of King David Hotel.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel..

  3. yamit82 says:

    Point Man on granting China Most Favored Nation trade designation
    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020401/nichols

  4. yamit82 says:

    Volunteered his services to the military. – NOT OUR MILITARY, Israel’s Military.
    http://news.muckety.com/2008/06/04/rahm-emanu...
    http://www.voltairenet.org/article144314.html

    THATS Obama’s first choice.
    http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jld3VILFDb..

  5. Laura says:

    So his wife isn’t even ethnically Jewish. She’s not a real Jew as far as I’m concerned.

  6. Bill Narvey says:

    Laura, you are one tough single minded elitist.

    What to you is a real Jew?

    For me, real Jews become Jews by being born Jewish or as adults, they freely convert to Judaism. There is absolutely no difference between the two as Jews in my mind.

    Being an Orthodox Jewish conversion, I trust you would agree that there is no question about the authenticity of Amy Rule’s conversion to Judaism.

    You are entitled to your opinion of course Laura, but I am wondering just how you came to the opinion you hold.

  7. h peskin says:

    Bill Narvey: Why don’t you allow our Laura to cackle? Eventually She will lay you an egg.

  8. Laura says:

    My opinion is based on ethnicity.

  9. Laura says:

    A really nice guy

    I assume you’re being sarcastic since I cannot access the article.

  10. confuseddaisy says:

    So… I think Laura’s confusing Judaism as a religion and having an ancestry that goes back to Israel- or being a Jew… different things. Being Jewish is a religion- not an ethnicity when you are referring to the religion. Get it?

  11. h peskin says:

    Laura: May I try to enlighten you just one bit. Not all tan skin liberals are villainous anti-semites. Case in point Adolph Hitler was not a liberal, as a matter of fact he was, like yourself very anti-liberal- and he was not black and HE REALLY WAS A TRUE ANTI-SEMITE.

    I am not trying to fool you- but Obama is no anti-semite. Now you should sleep well.

  12. Birdalone says:

    Rahm Emmanuel stayed uncommitted until June 4, the day after the last primary and the day Obama delivered his AIPAC speech. At the time, I assumed Rahm helped write it. Chief of Staff is the gatekeeper to the president. Plus, Rahm is a centrist partisan, so I feel a bit better knowing Rahm is in this job.

  13. yamit82 says:

    Being Jewish is a religion- not an ethnicity when you are referring to the religion. Get it?
    Judaism is not a religion! You know zilch! Get it Confused?
    Peskin, he is antisemitic at least circumstantially.
    here.
    http://www.torahmedia.com/streamlink.php?fid=23726&bw=high
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPJzV0fVS70

    http://www.gavrielsanders.com/

  14. Another example of the synagogue of Satan.

    When one looks at Obama’s new tribe, it’s one big happy Satanic anti-Christ family!

    Let every Jew FAITHFUL to the G-d of Israel not be deceived!

    “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel!”

    May Israel discern between the Synagogue of the God of Israel versus the Synagogue of Satan – where Emanuel worships.

  15. yamit82 says:

    sunstar what the hell do you know about what synagogue Emanuel attends. I advise you to stick with your favorite lakes of fire which I am sure you will endure sooner than later. Stick to Christian craziness and leave the Jews be. We have enough problems with Jews, and really don’t need some sicko Christian mucking up the internal Jewish water more than they already are. But out.

  16. BlandOatmeal says:

    Yamit, YOU’re the one who ought to butt out. You make all Jews look like hot-headed idiots.

    Back to the subject of Rahm Emanuel,

    …Emanuel’s knowledge of the top donors in the country, and his rapport with potential donors within the Jewish community helped Clinton amass a then-unheard-of sum of $72 million.[7]…

    One of his proudest moments during the Clinton administration “was an event that touched his political sensibilities and his personal ties to Israel: the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony after the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (“PLO”). Emanuel directed the details of the ceremony, down to the choreography of the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat.”[7]

    Emanuel is said to have “mailed a rotten fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways.”[7] On the night after the 1996 election, “Emanuel was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting ‘Dead! … Dead! … Dead!’ and plunging the knife into the table after every name.”[6] His “take-no-prisoners attitude” earned him the nickname “Rahm-bo”.[7] People who worked with Emanuel at that time “insist the once hard-charging staffer has mellowed out.”[citation needed]

    [edit] Career in finance
    After serving as an advisor to Bill Clinton, in 1998 Emanuel left the White House to become an investment banker at Wasserstein Perella, (now Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002.[9] In 1999, he became a managing director at the firm’s Chicago office. Emanuel made $16.2 million in his two-and-a-half-year stint as a banker, according to Congressional disclosures.[9][10] At Wasserstein Perella, he worked on eight deals, including the acquisition by Commonwealth Edison of Peco Energy and the purchase by GTCR Golder Rauner of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC Communications.[9]

    Emanuel was named to the Board of Directors for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (“Freddie Mac”) by then President Bill Clinton in 2000. His position paid him $31,060 in 2000 and $231,655 in 2001.[11] Emanuel resigned from the board in 2001 when he ran for congress.[12]…

    – Wikipedia

    This guy scares the bejeebers out of me. Obama appears to be massively in debt to him, and he is the epitome of the “Protocol of the Elders…” myth of Jews. This fellow does not look like good news, either to Jews or to Israel. Barak’s background has raised a lot of still-unanswered questions; but Emanuel’s history seems to give us answers to questions we dare not ask.

    During the Reagan administration, Mike Deaver started getting a big head. When he hung up the phone while Mrs. Reagan was talking to him, though, he signed his own political death warrant. From the little I’ve seen and heard of Emanuel, it looks that he might very well follow Deaver’s lead — the sooner the better.