Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Rahm Emanuel Sworn In as Mayor of Chicago

Rahm Emanuel was sworn in as the first Jewish mayor of Chicago.

Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff, took the oath of office on Monday. He was elected mayor of the country’s third-largest city in February after sitting mayor Richard Daley declined to seek a seventh term in office.

Emanuel, 51, also worked in the Clinton White House and is a former congressman from Chicago’s North Side. A Hebrew speaker, Emanuel is the son of an Israeli doctor who moved to the United States in the 1950s.

Emanuel faced a residency challenge during the campaign because he did not live in Chicago for a full year before the election, but his candidacy was upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court.

He now faces the formidable task of helping the city pull out of serious financial difficulties, including a 2011 budget deficit of more than $500 million.

Asked about her son’s status as the city’s first Jewish mayor, Emanuel’s mother, Marsha, told the Chicago Sun-Times, “It is awesome, my dear, unexplainable. This is an honor for the people; an honor for us; an honor for the whole culture.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.