Rahm Emanuel: A Square on the Gevurah/Chesed Checkerboard
"Emanuel... has long been seen as a strong supporter of Israel within the Democratic party. His evolving position is unquestionably a reaction to increasing anti-Israel public sentiment, particularly on the American Left." -- Blaise Malley, Responsible Statecraft (Jul. 9, 2026)
"From 2001 to 2005, Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans' Middle East sympathies, with the gap averaging 43 points between 2001 and 2018. However, public opinion began narrowing in 2019, several years before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. The cumulative effect of gradual changes in U.S. attitudes since then has led to the Israelis no longer being viewed more sympathetically."
Not oblivious to the changing tides of public opinion, clever intriguers like Rahm Emanuel are right now hard at work levelling the land for the development of a centrist plantation upon which criticism of Netanyahu and aspects of his Likud regime -- and US support for it -- are tolerated in the hopes of reclaiming the support of disillusioned voters by affixing a more palatable face to the pro-Israel cause. (Reuters/Ipsos polling shows Israel's favorability rating at 22% among Democrats.)
"The Kabbalistic temple is supported by the pillar of chesed (mercy) and the pillar of gevurah (severity), both are required to support Judaism's supremacy. These two seemingly opposing pillars offer two ways of relating to the world depending on the spirit of the age in which Judaism finds itself situated. Judaism's Temple is the synthesis of these two forces. The Temple cannot be sustained only by presenting a lenient or merciful face, or only by severe or judgmental means. ...'pairs' produce the synthesis that is Judaism in all of its indissolubly connected, subterranean minutiae."
Widely considered a contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, Emanuel recently travelled to Israel to deliver a speech to a packed hall at Tel Aviv University, addressing, among other topics, an end to unconditional US support for Israel. The Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that during the course of his speech -- in which he referred to Israel as a "pariah" -- Emanuel put forth a "proposal for U.S. sanctions targeting Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians and property, Israeli officials who voice support for that violence, and companies and banks that support 'illegal settlements."'
The speech, titled "An Honest Conversation: The U.S.-Israel Relationship, Where it Stands Today and the Road Ahead," is an obvious attempt by the prominent Democrat to repair the fractured Israel/Washington alliance, while rehabilitating his image as a "vocal Zionist" in anticipation of the 2028 presidential election. Some rather gullible commentators have already fallen for the ruse, like the Lebanese-Australian Mario Nawfal, who triumphantly tweeted: "The era of unconditional U.S. support for Israel just ended. And Rahm Emanuel flew to Tel Aviv to say it to their faces. His speech is designed to land like a thunderclap, and the messenger guarantees it does. Emanuel is not a progressive activist. He's a centrist."
A more cynical person might ask: If Rahm Emanuel cares so deeply about the plight of Palestinian civilians and ending unconditional foreign aid to Israel, why has he failed to raise either of these issues until now, when Netanyahu's government is losing the support of the entire Western world? [1] The answer resides in the fact that Emanuel is a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist who doesn't actually care about the aforementioned issues. Rather, his lofty political ambitions within the Democratic Party coupled with historically low support for Israel, has made it necessary for Emanuel to present himself as the light square of leniency juxtaposed with Netanyahu's dark square of severity on the checkered floor of the Jewish Temple.
Rahm Israel Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959 to Dr. Benjamin Emanuel and Marsha Smulevitz. He attended Rabbi Solomon Goldman's Anshe Emet Day School, a private Jewish school, until 1968, when the family moved to Wilmette, Illinois, whereupon he was enrolled in public school and graduated from New Trier West High in 1977. [2] Throughout his youth, Rahm would attend annual summer camps in Israel --including the summer following the 1967 Six-Day War -- which no doubt amplified the already passionate ethnic sentiments inherited via his family's close ties to Israel and political activism.
Emanuel's father, Benjamin Auerbach (1927 - 2019), was a pediatrician born in Jerusalem in 1927. His parents, having fled to Palestine from Odessa in 1905, changed the family name to Emanuel in honor of Benjamin's older brother Emanuel Auerbach, who died after being struck by a bullet fragment during a conflict between Jews, Arabs and police during the British occupation of Palestine in 1933. No doubt influenced by this event, Benjamin would later be persuaded by his cousin to join the underground Zionist terror organization Irgun to, in his own words, "sabotage the British Empire, to send letters with bombs in them to England." [3] Emanuel was operating as a weapons smuggler for the Irgun (a forerunner of Netanyahu's Likud Party) when the group bombed the King David Hotel, Britain's administrative headquarters, in 1946, and was very much involved in supplying weapons to Menachem Begin's militants during Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
In 1953, Benjamin immigrated to Chicago where he met his wife Marsha Smulevitz, an X-ray technician at Mount Sinai Hospital and an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Between 1957 and 1961, the couple had three sons, Ezekiel, Rahm and Ari, who have all achieved high levels of success in their respective careers. [4] After Benjamin's death, Rahm remembered his father as the quintessential Israeli:
"There was no sweetness. No softness around the edges. It's how Israelis are. This was a guy who said he loved you by calling you a schmuck and hitting you in the back of the head. A lot of people call you a schmuck, but not a lot of people say it with a hit, then say 'I love you.' That's who he was."
Emanuel became involved in politics in the early 1980s while enrolled at Northwestern University, where he earned a master's degree in speech and communication. His first job in politics -- as spokesman for the Illinois Public Action Council -- brought him into contact with an ambitious Jew named David Axelrod, and the pair became close friends two years later while working on the victorious Senate campaign of Paul Simon. The success of the Simon campaign helped launch the political careers of Axelrod and Emanuel who would both one day occupy key positions within the administration of President Obama.
In early 1991, Emanuel volunteered for a short stint in the IDF as part of Israel's Sar-el program, where he worked as a tank mechanic at one of Israel's northern bases during the Gulf War. He relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas upon his return to the United States to serve as the chief fundraiser for Governor Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, eventually raising over $120 million for the degenerate 42nd President of the United States. Clinton would appoint the dual-loyalist political director of the new administration following his election victory in November 1992, before reassigning him the position of Deputy Communications Director and Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy, from where Emanuel was instrumental in the destruction of nearly one million US jobs as the primary architect of the infamous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
After the Clinton administration came to an end, Emanuel went to work at the Chicago office of the investment firm Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein where he mysteriously made $16 million in two years before deciding to run for Congress in 2002. He was elected and represented Illinois's 5th district from 2003 - 2009, burnishing his reputation as a pro-Israel hardliner almost immediately upon taking office by signing a letter to then-President George W. Bush defending the Jewish state's controversial policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders and criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of Israel! For many years afterwards, he whole-heartedly defended Bush's decision to invade Iraq, even after joining the Obama administration and mildly critiquing certain aspects of the war.
When Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States he plucked Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod out of the Chicago political cesspit to accompany him to the White House as his Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor, respectively. Just days after Obama's election, Benjamin Emanuel caused a stir when he suggested to a reporter from Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv that his son was now in a position to influence the newly-elected president's stance towards Israel: "Obviously, he'll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House." The younger Emanuel left his post as White House Chief of Staff towards the end of 2010 to run for mayor of Chicago. He received overwhelming support from Jewish and LGBT voters and ultimately raised over $10 million dollars, in part through large contributions from people like Steven Spielberg and Donald Trump, close friends of his brother Ari Emanuel. Emanuel's controversy-plagued two terms as Mayor of Chicago earned him the sobriquet "Mayor 1%" for his economic policies favoring the wealthy, and by the time the "attack dog, policy wonk, committed Jew" was out of office in 2019, Chicago was a financial basket case with a surging murder rate driven by gang-related violence.
In his book The Talmud Tested (first published as The Old Paths in 1854), Irish Hebraist and missionary Alexander McCaul devotes a number of pages to analyzing a section of the Talmud called Hilchoth Accum, part of which captures the duplicity found throughout Jewish teaching:
"The poor of the idolators (non-Jews) are to be fed with the poor of Israel for the sake of the ways of peace. They are also permitted to have part of the gleaning, the forgotten sheaf, and the corner of the field, for the sake of the ways of the peace. It is also lawful to ask after their health, even on their feast-day, for the sake of the ways of the peace; but never to return the salutation, nor to enter the house of an idolator on the day of his festival to salute him. If he be met in the street, he is to be saluted in a low tone of voice, and with a heavy head. But all these things are said only of the time that Israel is in captivity among the nations, or that the hand of the idolators is strong upon Israel. But when the hand of Israel is strong upon them, we are forbidden to suffer an idolator among us, even so much as to sojourn incidentally, or to pass from place to place with merchandise." [Italics in original]
Commenting on the passage, Dr. McCaul wrote: "...the reader may now judge whether the words, 'For the sake of the ways of peace,' can be interpreted as... 'for the good of society.' If so, then 'the good of society' is to be consulted only whilst the Jews are in captivity, and the Gentiles have got the power: but as soon as the Jews get the power, 'the good of society' may safely be disregarded. The meaning plainly is, that in the present position of affairs it is advisable to keep the peace between Jews and Gentiles, inasmuch as the Gentiles are at present the strongest."
The outrage towards Israel felt by millions of Americans on both sides of the political divide since the Gaza 'War' began in October 2023, has made it necessary for any aspiring candidate for higher office to publicly adopt a more measured tone on Israel/Palestine and Jewish power in general. Because Rahm Emanuel and the Jewish oligarchs have yet to achieve complete mastery over the United States, certain concessions must be made "for the sake of the ways of the peace."
The concept of 'pairs' is a foundational one in Judaism and is expressed through several traditional ideas. During the Second Temple period (170 BC - 30 AD) there were five successive pairs of rabbis whose role was to preserve and transmit the Oral Law that would one day be committed to writing as the Talmud. These pairs are known in Hebrew as 'the zugot,' the most famous of which are Hillel and Shammai, who laid the framework for rabbinic debate with their opposing schools of thought. Michael Hoffman, in his book Judaism's Strange Gods, describes the pair within the context of mystical Judaism:
"Hillel serves his purpose within the rabbinic semiotic by acting as poster boy for the Kabbalistic pillar of chesed. But the rule of Shammai, the pillar of gevurah, also forms a significant part of the reality of Orthodox Judaism... In truth they are complimentary, as the mystical Kabbalah compliments the bureaucratic Talmud, thesis and antithesis; yin and yang -- the "zugot" who symbolize the subterranean synthesis that is Judaism in its indissolubly interconnected esoteric reconciliation of apparent opposites."
When considering Rahm Emanuel's Zionist pedigree and career, it's safe to assume that some variation of the ancient 'opposing pairs' theater is being performed right now with Netanyahu. A July 6 article by John Harris in Politico unwittingly hints at this theme while pondering Emanuel's presidential prospects:
"Emanuel's presidential ambitions so far are defined by two pillars. One is the essential plausibility of his resume... There's no one in the gathering field who has such a diverse range of experiences and personal associations, or moves as confidently or as restlessly in policy debates. The other pillar is the essential implausibility, amid prevailing political currents, of his nascent candidacy: He is an establishment centrist who is deeply mistrusted by many of the more left-leaning, insurgent and increasingly Israel-skeptical activists who reasonably believe their energy will power the party's next generation.
Netanyahu is a useful foil, and a potential bridge between the two pillars. Emanuel can accurately tell younger Democrats: Trust me, I have been at this fight longer than you have, and I have the enemies to show for it."
