Israel footing the bill for Rahm Emanuel's trip?
Israel is apparently footing the bill for the visit of Rahm Emanuel and his family to Israel, including a non-Kosher fish dinner in Eilat on Monday (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). Emanuel came to Israel on Friday for a 10-day trip with his family to celebrate the bar mitzva of his son Zach and nephew Noah. The ceremonies will be conducted later this week with the help of Emanuel’s rabbi in Virginia, Jack Moline, who is expected to come to Israel. Details of the bar mitzvas are still being kept a secret.I'm not happy about Israel footing the bill whether it's Kosher or not - this is supposed to be a private visit.
Yediot Aharonot reported Sunday that a Tourism Ministry official paid for the Emanuel family’s meal at Eilat’s non-kosher Boston restaurant on Friday. The report said the Emanuels ate cheviche, calamari and other seafood.
“We offered to help the Emanuels with their visit but they said no,” the spokesman said. “Our representative did not eat with them. We bring thousands of people to Israel. Our official events are kosher but when people are on their own we don’t pick at their plates or make sure they eat all their meals at the Knesset cafeteria.”
National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari wrote Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein complaining about taxpayer funds being used for a non-kosher meal and asking him to send the bill to Emanuel’s home.
“In my humble legal opinion there is no possibility of making the State of Israel pay for such a meal, as part of a private visit by the White House chief of staff and his family,” Ben-Ari wrote. “The public coffers are not up for grabs and the fact that the gentleman sponsors anti-Semitic policies in the White House is certainly no justification for digging into the public coffer at the expense of the old lady in the corridor of the hospital.”
Arutz Sheva adds:
It is not known where the Bar Mitzvah ceremony will take place. Nationalists have said that they will prevent Emanuel from celebrating at the Kotel (Western Wall). There have been reports that the ceremony will be held at the Robinson's Arch part of the Wall, which is slightly removed from the public area and which serves those of the Reform and Conservative communities who wish to hold prayer services that differ noticeably from traditional ones, as only traditional services are allowed at the public part of the Wall.I wonder what Emanuel's former rabbi in Chicago - who is Orthodox and moving to Israel next year - thinks of all this.
The media-savvy Emanuel made no attempt to keep his family's culinary experience in Eilat from becoming known to the Israeli media and even posed for a picture with the restaurant's chef. The event might therefore be interpreted by some as a deliberate message by Emanuel, in keeping with a line of theatrically insulting messages to Israel delivered by the White House since it came under Emanuel's direction. The most notorious of these was the photograph released by the White House of President Barack Obama speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with his feet propped up on his desk and the soles thrust at the camera.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:25 AM
6 Comments:
I don't know if he ate treif or not but Israel's government had no business funding his visit. If they don't ask for a refund, I think I will ask the Tourism Ministry to pay for my next flight, meals and room and board in Israel.
A big-shot like Emanuel should not get special treatment. The Israeli government paying for his trip out of Israeli taxpayer funds was completely inappropriate.
Here's what the Emanuel's Rabbi has to say about Emanuel in general:
Rahm Emanuel's Judaism Through His Rabbi's Eyes
BTW, from what I'm reading, his wife and children aren't Jewish to begin with.
Everything's a sham.
This actually warrants an investigation. The Emanuel family trip is a private one and should come out of his own rather wealthy pocket.
That Israel is playing suck-up to this kapo on the Israeli taxpayer's shekel is reprehensible. It's not only about his family's ostentatiously expensive seafood dinner on Erev Shabbat, but about the fact that this horrid, little Chicago thug is being openly courted by the current Israeli government. Heads should roll. Wish it were Emanuel's, but others - many others, including innocent Israeli civilians - will suffer for this dangerous courtship.
are we sure it was rahm and not his bro (who is not frum) who ate at the treif restaraunt?
Rahm's shul has a website. Go figure it's "egalitarian" with a woman prayer leader. And the rabbi is from Chicago, of course.
http://www.agudasachim-va.org/
I don't know about Emanuel's former Chicago rabbi, but I do know that his current rabbi, Jack Moline, requires converts to kasher their kitchens before conversion. At least he did when I lived in the DC area several years ago.
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