Richard Silverstein got a translation of the Maariv article about Rahm Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, and says that it reports that his brother was killed by Arabs in Jerusalem when the doctor was about 7 years old. Silverstein:
and it tells a more nuanced story. Dr. Emanuel is 82 years old–not that
excuses his prejudice. While he was a member of the right-wing Jewish
nationalist terror group, the Irgun, the article notes that in
Jerusalem in 1933, Emanuel’s brother, Emanuel Auerbach, was murdered in
an altercation with Arabs. To memorialize their son, his parents
changed their family name to Emanuel and moved to Tel Aviv.
Silverstein says this back story extenuates Benjamin Emanuel's racist statement about Arabs. I don't buy that. It raises other questions. Chiefly this: How much is this Rahm Emanuel's personal emotional framework for regarding the Arab world? Why hasn't he talked about this? As I have often commented, Doug Feith's father Dalck lost his entire family in the Holocaust, both parents and seven siblings. Incredible. He has my deepest compassion. But I didn't want the nephew of these murder victims making Middle East policy.
PS. The Times reported this many years ago. Though vaguely.
