Ezekiel Emanuel - Family

Family

Emanuel is the son of Benjamin M. Emanuel and Marsha (Smulevitz) Emanuel, and is a divorced father of three daughters. His two younger brothers are Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood-based talent agent Ari Emanuel. He has an adopted sister, Shoshana Emanuel. His father’s brother, Emanuel, was killed in the 1936 Arab Riots in the British Mandate of Palestine, after which the family changed its name from Auerbach to Emanuel in his honor.

His father, Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was once a member of the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary organization that operated in Mandate Palestine. He provided free care to poor immigrants and led efforts to get rid of lead paint due to its negative consequences for children. Emanuel’s mother, Marsha, a nurse and psychiatric social worker, was active in civil rights, including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She attended marches and demonstrations with her children. Emanuel recalled in a 2009 interview that, in his childhood, "worrying about ethical questions was very much part and parcel of our daily routine."

As children, the three Emanuel brothers shared a bedroom, wrestled and played football in the family room, and spent summers together in Israel. All three brothers took ballet lessons in their childhood, which Emanuel says "hardened us and taught us that if you do something unusual, people will take potshots at you."

Emanuel and his brother Rahm frequently argue about healthcare policy. Emanuel mimics his brother's end of the conversation: "You want to change the whole healthcare system, and I can’t even get SCHIP passed with dedicated funding? What kind of idiot are you?"

Emanuel has a sister with cerebral palsy. His daughter Gabrielle, a 2010 graduate of Dartmouth College, won a Rhodes scholarship in November 2010. Another daughter, Natalia, is a student at Yale University and former co-editor and chief of the Hoofbeat, the Northside Prep High School newspaper.