The duties of the chief of staff are both managerial and advisory, and depending upon the president's choice and style they can cover the following: managerial -- selecting key White House staff and supervising them, structuring the White House staff system, controlling the flow of people into the Oval Office and managing the flow of information; and also advisory -- advising the president on issues of politics and policy, negotiating with Congress, other members of the executive branch and extra-governmental political groups to implement the president's agenda. In short, the chief of staff is responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the president's schedule and deciding who is allowed to meet with the president. Because of these duties, the chief of staff has been dubbed "the Gatekeeper" and "the Co-President."
The new chief of staff of President-elect Barack Obama is Rahm Israel Emanuel. He is a politician who has been a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives since 2003. After the recent elections, he was elected the next chairman of the Democratic Caucus. Before his acceptance of the post of chief of staff he was the fourth-highest ranking Democrat in the House, behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Whip Jim Clyburn and was widely believed to be Pelosi's successor. The main features of his personal life, gathered from various sources, are as follows:
He was born in Chicago, Illinois. His first name, Rahm, means "high" or "lofty" in Hebrew, while his last name, Emanuel, means "God is with us." He also has Israeli citizenship. Rahm's surname was adopted by his family in 1933, after Rahm's paternal uncle, Emanuel Auerbach, was killed in a confrontation with Palestinians in Jerusalem. His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and a former member of Irgun, a militant Zionist organization active in the British Mandate administration of Palestine between 1931 and 1948. His mother, Martha Smulevitz, worked as an X-ray technician and was the daughter of a local union organizer. She became a civil rights activist and was also once the owner of a Chicago-area rock 'n' roll club. Benjamin and Martha met in Chicago in the 1950s and later married. Rahm's older brother, Ezekiel, is an oncologist and bio-ethicist, and his other brother, Ari, is a talent agent in Los Angeles, who inspired Jeremy Pine's character Ari Gold on the HBO series, "Entourage." Rahm Emanuel himself is the inspiration for the character Josh Lyman on "The West Wing." He also has a younger adopted sister named Shoshanna, 14 years his junior.
Rahm Emanuel attended Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, a Jewish day school. After his family moved to Wilmette, Illinois, he attended public schools. 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.
During the first Gulf War of 1991, he went to Israel and joined the Israeli army as a civilian volunteer, serving in a northern base, rust-proofing brakes.
Emanuel's wife, Amy Rule, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism shortly before her wedding. The couple are members of Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Chicago. They have three children, a son, Zacharias, and daughters, Ilana and Leah.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel Congregation is quoted as saying, ''They are a very involved Jewish family.'' Emanuel has said of his Judaism, ''I am proud of my heritage and treasure the values it has taught me.''
President-elect Obama's gatekeeper, Rahm Emanuel, is a very interesting, ambitious, many-sided and able person. Everybody will watch him carefully.
