Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family (42 page)

All that aside, it’s true that much of our personalities is the result of active parenting. For better or worse, our attitudes, morals, expectations, and behavioral style are
definitely
the product of the way Ben and Marsha organized their household, treated us as children, and showed us, through example, how to live a good life. The key here is their sense of purpose. I’m not saying we were programmed 24/7. On the contrary, we were given plenty of time for open-ended play. However, the scheduled time was devoted to more unusual and frankly adult activities: political demonstrations, ballet, classical concerts, and theater productions.

The money to pay for these experiences came from all the scrimping my mother and father did when it came to everyday expenses. Indeed, if you had visited us when we lived in Chicago you might have looked at our clothes and the furnishings in our homes and judged us to be lower-middle-class at best. We often wore patched jeans bought at Sears; Levi’s were out of our price range. At times it felt as if we were actually poor, especially in comparison to the families of some of the kids we met at Anshe Emet. But we were aware that by saving on common comforts we were able to have extraordinary cultural experiences. Living on the cheap made all those summers in Israel and trips to Europe possible—something none of our friends got despite their substantial wealth.

It would be hard to overstate the importance of travel in our upbringing. While our richer friends spent school vacations at expensive overnight camps or on Florida beaches, we went first on very deliberate tours of the American West and then on long foreign excursions,
at a time when few families in our social circle did. When it comes to understanding history and culture and putting your own existence in context, my parents firmly believed that travel is absolutely the best teacher. Although many more Americans travel abroad today, in the 1960s jets were still new and between the expense and the discomforts only a small percentage of our countrymen felt motivated to cross the oceans. Most who did went to Great Britain, France, or Italy, where they stuck with a tour group or trundled from one tourist attraction to another.

At home, being part of a minority group also reinforced the way we identified with people who were oppressed and pushed to the margins of society. In word and deed, our parents taught us that we did not have to accept being put down or denied our rights. With that came the notion that no one should be permitted to exercise authority that hadn’t been earned and the idea that we should always be willing to defy convention and follow our own inner beings.

Time and again, our parents supported us with supplies and encouragement as we explored interests as varied as ballet, building castles, and hawking T-shirts at rock concerts, which made us fearless when it came to hatching schemes and chasing dreams. Altogether, the escapades, travel, lessons, encouragement, and social encounters made our family life “child-centered” before the phrase came into popular use. Whether we were marching in protests with my mother or trailing after our father at the hospital, our parents made us the focus of their lives and made an effort to instill in us certain values, attitudes, and traits. Some of these efforts worked, and some inspired rebellion. In the category of rebellion, I’d list my decision to give up the practice of medicine, Ari’s unabashed pursuit of wealth, and Rahm’s practical (rather than radical) approach to politics. In all three cases, we have set our own routes, deviating from our parents’ road map.

But even after taking into account the variations and our individual quirks, it’s still possible to see a distinct Emanuel blend of strengths, weaknesses, and other characteristics. All human beings are full of contradictions, tension, and flaws. Our critics and defenders would agree that Ari, Rahm, and I can be both benevolent and belligerent,
sometimes in the same moment, as when my brothers say, “I love you, asshole.” We can also be ambivalent about an issue, especially when we are at our most dogmatic. But passion, energy, and persistence are the hallmarks of the Emanuel style, and it was these three traits that we all exhibited as we advocated for others and ourselves in medicine, politics, and show business.

Laughter was a constant in our childhood home, and it is the sound you will hear wherever any of us go; you would be able to identify me even in a very dark movie theater. However, we are, all three of us, demanding and rigorous when it comes to our work and our ethics. And like our parents, we generally want to mitigate any suffering we encounter, and if we’re in the position to help—with family, friends, colleagues, even strangers—we will do it.

In word and deed, our mother and father both offered the clear message that they could not abide bullies and that they expected us to stand up to them whenever possible. Ironically, a deep analysis of our life experience—the kind you might conduct while writing a memoir—would inevitably point to moments when we experienced bullying among ourselves. As much as my mother hated the way her own father pushed her around, she could play the bully with her emotional outbursts and extended silences. Also, it has to be said that our father bullied our mother into moving to Wilmette. And I’m sure that you could find plenty of people willing to recite instances of bullying practiced by Ari, Rahm, and me. Indeed, the impatient, pushy Emanuel style is so well known that during a recent interview for college presidency I was asked, point blank, whether I had the levelheaded temperament the position required.

I know this admission is no big surprise to anyone who’s heard about us. Everyone knows that Rahm can be a rough-and-tumble politician and has done his share of shouting and cursing. And there’s a foul-mouthed, hyperaggressive character on the HBO show
Entourage
who is modeled after Ari and does little else but bully people. But as obvious as our flaws are to others, it’s difficult to recognize them in oneself.

What other shortcomings do we Emanuels share? Sarcasm is one.
Eye-rolling snobbery is another. But, thankfully, as we age these bad habits are fading and our appreciation for the advantages and gifts we received while growing up Emanuel has grown. It is my mother’s moral certainty that I hear when Ari condemns the bigoted rants of Mel Gibson. It is my father’s sense of humor I see in Rahm’s more outrageous acts, like calling out the names of political enemies and declaring them “dead” while stabbing a table with a steak knife.

Finally, I would have to credit the Emanuel brotherhood itself as a major influence on the men we grew up to be. We spent the first ten years of our lives sleeping in the same room, eating at the same table, and strategizing over how to appease our mother’s tempestuous moods. Then we spent four summers together in Israel—entertaining ourselves together. The bond we formed growing up together is unbreakable. As adults we are constantly checking in with one another by email and phone. It’s not unusual for us to talk four or five times in a week. Indeed, going a whole week without connecting makes us worried that something bad has happened. (It was not until I was middle-aged that I discovered how unusual this is for adult siblings.) And we are able to support one another in a way that is uniquely consistent, specific, and well-informed. We can confide in one another knowing we will receive much more than the generic advice a friend or acquaintance might offer. No one is more critical of me than my brothers, but no one is more supportive and loyal.

As I wrote earlier, Ben and Marsha perfected the art of jazz parenting. But just as in music, their noisy riffs and improvisations were all played within certain rules. Our home may have seemed chaotic, but amid the arguing and the tussling no one was permitted to practice prejudice, cruelty, or stupidity. Every comment received due consideration, no matter who said it. Standards may have been loose when it came to swearing and wrestling, but they were quite strict when it came to values like loyalty and integrity. All that we received depended on us upholding these values, and if we ever failed, we felt the loss acutely. Nothing that other parents did to punish their children, from spanking to grounding
to the withdrawal of privileges, could have felt worse than what we felt when the mood suddenly shifted and our mother retreated in anger. The desire for her approval was a powerful motivator. At the deepest level, this anxiety lies behind much of what we have achieved.

The impatient and never-ending expectations voiced by our mother and, to a lesser extent, our father got into our hearts and minds and made each one of us burn with ambition. But while we each set a course toward our own version of achievement, not one of us was able to establish an endpoint. Rahm did not say, “I’ll be satisfied if I get to the White House.” Ari did not declare, “I want to run a Fortune 500 company.” Because we had internalized the idea that life is a matter of constant striving, we could not imagine reaching a point where we would be satisfied. In fact, each achievement, whether it was a published book or an election victory, brought a new, higher goal, which required even more effort.

This insight into the shared source of our success came to me gradually when we began our Thanksgiving get-togethers. Beginning in the early 1990s, they gave us opportunities to check for signs of change, reflect on our lives, and consider the influences that made us—family, Chicago, New Trier, Jewish heritage, the sixties, Americanism, liberal politics. They also let us celebrate some of life’s landmarks. In 2009 we used Thanksgiving weekend to have Rahm’s fiftieth birthday party and plan for a family journey to Israel, where we would celebrate two bar mitzvahs—for Rahm’s and Ari’s sons—marking the first time we were there all together since 1970. In 2010, the big news at Thanksgiving revolved around Rahm’s departure from Washington and his campaign to be elected mayor of Chicago. I brought to the table, in a manner of speaking, this memoir.

Although no one in the family had read the manuscript, everyone had an opinion. Suspicion, sensitivity, and curiosity swirled in the air as my brothers, their wives, and various children interrogated me for a couple of hours. They wouldn’t stop until I agreed to distribute some of the chapters I had finished.

Foraging through the memories of our lives, my brothers and I have decided that there isn’t one single thing that our mother, our father,
or anyone else added to our cereal to make us this way. Instead it was an approach to life itself, reinforced in myriad different moments, that made us Emanuel boys into Emanuel men.

Hopefully, one day the three of us will reach a point where we are truly satisfied with all that we have as individuals, members of our family, and citizens of our great country. It’s not up to our parents, who got us this far, to teach us this one last lesson. No, it is our responsibility. Perhaps when we fulfill it we will be truly grown-up. In the meantime, I have a message for my Emanuel brothers. I love you, you schmucks. And I admire what you have made of yourselves.

Family histories are made of stories. For years I had been jotting down random stories and memories I wanted to share with my children. The process of transforming these notes into a family chronicle ultimately became an unexpected—at least to me—journey of self-discovery.

The idea of organizing these disjointed stories into a coherent narrative first came to Richard Abate, then an agent working for my brother at William Morris Endeavor. Such a book is the creation of many helping and critical hands. To each of them I owe deep thanks.

When Richard left, Suzanne Gluck and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at William Morris Endeavor seamlessly took over as my agents. They offered warm support, ideas, and insightful criticism. Their belief in the value of this book never wavered.

The book benefited from three terrific editors at Random House. Susan Mercandetti originally acquired the book before joining ABC. She offered insightful ideas about how to structure the stories. Jonathan Jao took over, providing many ideas about how to improve the first draft. Susan Kamil was the hands-on editor extraordinaire. This book is much better because of her exceptional editing—especially the suggested cuts—and discerning emendations.

The real work of writing this book began with Michael D’Antonio, who helped me revisit people and places and feelings that had been far in the past. He also had the great idea of videotaping a discussion among the three brothers during the summer of 2011. This book could not have been realized without his diligent work and collaboration. Our numerous discussions of my family’s history greatly enriched and deepened my understanding of my own life and the life of my family.

My parents spent many hours recounting crucial stories that I could not know or whose details I did not fully remember.

There are many people who contributed stories—and they are often named in the book. Special thanks for insights go to my boyhood friend Michael Alter, who has been engaged with our family since he was seven and I was ten, and to Andrew Oram, a close college classmate and the paradigm of Aristotelian friendship for all these many years.