The First Jew in the White House: A Prospect Also Under Observation at the Vatican

The pen­ding “fir­st gen­tle­man” could also beco­me the fir­st Jew in the White House in the histo­ry of the United States. Doug Emhoff, 60, husband of Democratic pre­si­den­tial can­di­da­te Kamala Harris, is the grand­son of Polish Jews who emi­gra­ted across the Atlantic to esca­pe the Holocaust.

Born in Brooklyn, rai­sed in New Jersey, he atten­ded a Reform syna­go­gue, Temple Shalom, whe­re at the age of 13 he made his Bar Mitzvah, the cere­mo­ny that marks entry into the com­mu­ni­ty. But he soon stop­ped going to tem­ple, as a Jew more by cul­tu­re than by faith. His fir­st mar­ria­ge, to film pro­du­cer Kerstin Mackin, bore two chil­dren, Cole and Emma, whom he did not edu­ca­te in the Torah.

After beco­ming a law­yer he moved to Los Angeles, into the hub­bub of Hollywood’s goings-on. There he met Kamala Harris, the “iron pro­se­cu­tor” of California. They mar­ried in 2014, in a cere­mo­ny offi­cia­ted by her sister, Maya, a mem­ber of the Church of God in Oakland. Kamala, rai­sed by her Indian mother in the Hindu faith, has for years atten­ded the Baptist church of San Francisco led by the Reverend Amos Brown, but at home she con­ti­nues to cele­bra­te Diwali, the Hindu festi­val of lights. She is a typi­cal exem­plar of the reli­gious sce­ne in the United States, whe­re tran­si­tions from one reli­gion to ano­ther and inter­faith mar­ria­ges are ever more fre­quent.

But in 2021, when Harris beca­me vice pre­si­dent, the tur­ning point came for Emhoff too. He left his law prac­ti­ce and moved to Washington: “I beca­me a law­yer becau­se I hated bul­lies, but I want to con­ti­nue defen­ding the weak.” President Joe Biden took noti­ce of him and entru­sted him with a task for­ce again­st discri­mi­na­tion. Which very soon focu­sed on anti­se­mi­ti­sm. In January 2023 he went to Auschwitz, and in the United States he went all over to meet with Jews, espe­cial­ly in schools: “I didn’t rea­li­ze what a big deal it would be not only to the Jewish com­mu­ni­ty and to faith com­mu­ni­ties but to myself. It’s actual­ly dri­ven me clo­ser to faith. It has ope­ned my eyes to a lot of things.”

And so, in Washington, he atta­ched the “mezu­zot,” the Scripture-bearing cases dear to the Pharisees, to the door of the vice-presidential resi­den­ce. He began lighting the Hanukkah cand­les again. He was the fir­st to cele­bra­te the “seders,” the Passover din­ners, at the White House. After October 7, 2023, fol­lo­wing the mas­sa­cre com­mit­ted by Hamas and with the gro­wth of hatred for Israel and Jews, espe­cial­ly at the American uni­ver­si­ties, his acti­vi­ty beca­me increa­sin­gly inten­se. At the con­ven­tion in Chicago last August, when Kamala Harris offi­cial­ly beca­me the Democratic can­di­da­te for pre­si­dent, he invi­ted as spea­kers the paren­ts of one of the Hamas hosta­ges, the American citi­zen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. A few weeks later, he would be one of the six found kil­led in the tun­nels of Gaza.

“I love being Jewish,” Emhoff said at the con­ven­tion in August.  “I love eve­ry­thing about it. I want to shout it from the moun­tain­tops. As your fir­st fir­st gen­tle­man, I pro­mi­se you, as the fir­st Jewish per­son ever to be a White House prin­ci­pal, I am going to con­ti­nue this fight again­st anti­se­mi­ti­sm.” Formally, the “fir­st gen­tle­man” does not have a pre­de­fi­ned role. But the­re is much he can do. One need only think of the actual influen­ce that the “fir­st ladies” Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama had.

It is not sur­pri­sing that the oppo­sing camp is try­ing to exploit Emhoff’s Judaism to drum up votes for Donald Trump among pro-Palestinian voters, for exam­ple tho­se of the lar­ge Islamic com­mu­ni­ty in Michigan, one of the sta­tes most in the balan­ce bet­ween Democrats and Republicans. The trou­ble for them is that Emhoff is not easy to cari­ca­tu­re. He is not a Bernie Sanders, the famous far-left sena­tor from Vermont, descri­bed by the gay jour­na­li­st and rab­bi Jay Michaelson as the per­fect repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the “basi­cal­ly athei­st Jewish Democratic Socialist, part of the erst­whi­le 20th-century American Jewish Left.” No, Emhoff is a twenty-first cen­tu­ry Jew, without faci­le ste­reo­ty­pes, with a big smi­le and kind­ly eyes, with a fir­st wife who has beco­me a friend of his cur­rent one and with chil­dren from his fir­st mar­ria­ge who affec­tio­na­te­ly call their second mother “Momala,” the com­ple­te oppo­si­te of that “child­less cat lady” label pin­ned on Kamala Harris by Trump’s run­ning mate, the Catholic J. D. Vance.

In short, Harris only needs her husband at her side to woo pro-Israel voters, after having drop­ped the idea, althou­gh con­si­de­red up to the last minu­te, of choo­sing as her vice-presidential can­di­da­te ano­ther accom­pli­shed Jew, Josh Shapiro, gover­nor of Pennsylvania.

Not to men­tion that among her advi­sors Harris also avails her­self of ano­ther Jew with pro­ven expe­rien­ce, Philippe Reines, for­mer press secre­ta­ry to Hillary Clinton when she was secre­ta­ry of sta­te, during the pre­si­den­cy of Barack Obama.

Reines grew up in New York with his grand­mo­ther and his mother, Judith, and atten­ded Ramaz, the eli­te Modern Orthodox school on the Upper East Side. He is one of the orga­ni­zers of the “October 7 Project,” an orga­ni­za­tion that fights disin­for­ma­tion about the war bet­ween Israel and Hamas. He was the one who instruc­ted Harris, step by step, on how to face and defeat her rival, Donald Trump, in the only tele­vi­sed duel they have had so far.

Furthermore, by a curious coin­ci­den­ce, on September 16 Pope Francis wel­co­med as Israel’s new ambas­sa­dor to the Holy See Yaron Sideman, 57, a diplo­mat who kno­ws the United States well, having car­ried out much of his acti­vi­ty the­re, most recen­tly as con­sul gene­ral for Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, and sou­thern New Jersey, and pre­viou­sly as the head for North America at the offi­ce for Diaspora and inter­re­li­gious affairs of the Israeli forei­gn mini­stry. The axis bet­ween Israel and the United States has in him a sea­so­ned pro­fes­sio­nal, whom Vatican diplo­ma­cy will cer­tain­ly take into account.

(Translated by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com)

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Sandro Magister is past “vati­ca­ni­sta” of the Italian wee­kly L’Espresso.
The late­st arti­cles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archi­ve of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is acces­si­ble.
As is the com­ple­te index of the blog www.chiesa, which pre­ce­ded it.

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