Here’s the story summing up Rahm Emanuel’s speech this morning to The Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly in Washington. But you might also be interested in a couple of Emanuel’s quips and one-liners from the speech.
After announcing that his son and his nephew would be having their bar mitzvahs this spring in Israel, and receiving applause, the White House chief of staff said the applause was "cheap" and that he’d be accepting $18 dollar checks on their behalf.
A few seconds later, he interjected, in case anyone was pulling out their checkbook: "That’s obviously illegal as a public servant–that’s a joke."
Earlier, he had begun to list, numbering them as he went along, various U.S. markers for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Applause was big for number one, but progressively got weaker by number three — so he quipped, "We’re getting weaker here." (Looking back at the video, in which Emanuel states just before the quip that "all issues should be resolved through negotiations and mutual agreement" and "unilateral actions should be avoided," it appears the crowd might have just been weary of applauding, not necessarily negatively reacting to Emanuel’s specific statement.)
Emanuel opened up his speech by jibing at his D.C.-area rabbi, Jack Moline. After it was announced over the weekend that he was pinch-hitting for President Obama at the GA, Emanuel received an e-mail with suggested "talking points" for his speech from Moline, the media-friendly rabbi at Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Va., and the Rabbinical Assembly’s director of public policy.
The final talking point, he said, was "Don’t forget to mention Jack Moline."
Finally, one of my favorite moments of this year’s GA came Monday evening, when Elliott Yamin performed at a Jewish Federation of Greater Washington-sponsored event. As a longtime fan of American Idol and a longtime reporter on the Jewish communal world, I never imagined those two worlds would actually collide. But they did last night, when Yamin dedicated a song to former D.C. federation president Michael Gelman in honor of Gelman taking over as chair of JFNA’s executive committee.
The song was "Free," with lyrics like "You’ve achieved the unexplainable." Here’s the chorus:
You’ll be free
Nothing’s impossible
Free (alright,alright)
You’ve achieved the unexplainable
Free
I believe that miracles
Happen to those
Who refuse to be told
They can happen when we least expect
So we let ourselves be free
OK, so Yamin and Gelman aren’t close — the singer was reading info about Gelman off a piece of paper someone had handed him. Still, I look forward to next year — where I hope to see Adam Lambert give a shout-out to William Daroff or something.
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