Rahm Emanuel and his two brothers will donate $550,000 to train Palestinian pediatric medical staff at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center, in a program designed to help establish the first dedicated children’s hospital in the northern West Bank.
The donation, worth about NIS 1.64 million, was announced Monday in New York by Project Rozana, an organization that promotes medical cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Rahm Emanuel
(Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama and former U.S. ambassador to Japan, is the best known of the three brothers and has been mentioned as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028.
The program will provide training for 11 pediatricians and 36 nurses from An-Najah National University Hospital in Nablus. It will include specialist training, fellowship programs and leadership development aimed at supporting the establishment of a new children’s hospital.
According to Rozana, An-Najah serves as a tertiary referral center for about 1.3 million people, including approximately 585,000 children.
The donation is being made in honor of the brothers’ parents, the late Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, a pediatrician, and Marsha Emanuel, who worked as a radiology technician and later as a therapist.
“Our late father was a pediatrician and our mother was a radiology technician and later a therapist, and both believed that no child should be left without medical care,” the brothers said.
They added that the donation would ultimately provide “better and improved care for Palestinian children, while harnessing health care to build relationships of trust between Israeli and Palestinian medical professionals and bridge the divide.”
Rahm Emanuel’s older brother, Ezekiel Emanuel, is a physician and health policy expert at the University of Pennsylvania who helped shape health policy under the Obama administration. Their younger brother, Ari Emanuel, is one of Hollywood’s most prominent talent agents.
Rahm Emanuel visited Israel in July and toured Ichilov Medical Center, where he was briefed on its cooperation with Project Rozana.
The Palestinian medical teams will receive training in fields including neurosurgery, neurology, hemato-oncology, orthopedics and respiratory care, as well as pediatric and neonatal intensive care.
Kenneth Bob, chairman of Project Rozana USA, described the Emanuel family’s contribution as the largest private donation the organization has ever received.
“We are deeply grateful for the extraordinary support of the Emanuel family,” he said. “This is a strategic investment in health care in the West Bank, as well as in our mission to advance medical diplomacy and create hope during a challenging period.”
Dr. Ayed Maqboul, director general of An-Najah National University Hospital, said the planned children’s hospital would represent an important step for families across the northern West Bank.
He said the training program would also include, for the first time, instruction for respiratory therapists, a medical specialty that currently does not exist within the Palestinian health system.
Founded in 2013, Project Rozana operates in Israel and the Palestinian territories under a model it calls “medical diplomacy,” which views health care both as a basic right and as a means of building communication and understanding between communities.
The organization has branches in Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Britain and the United States.