CNN
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The killing of six Israeli hostages marked another significant moment for Doug Emhoff, a Jewish American and spouse of a presidential candidate who is speaking up for himself and Kamala Harris in a way that only he can.
“It’s very difficult for me to speak here given the re-traumatization of the tragic weekend, but this is my way of making my voice heard,” the second man said at a hostage memorial vigil in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
For Emhoff, it’s a reflection of historical circumstances. He has spoken at length about how his reaction to Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate four years ago led him to revisit his Judaism. Then, as vice president, he felt compelled to speak out about how hurt he was, first by the rise in anti-Semitism and then by the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
With his wife suddenly the Democratic nominee and both of them in the spotlight, and as the world approaches the anniversary of the terror attacks and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza, friends and advisers say they are watching a man who continues to grapple with his own response to problems that are policy, political and personal. And as advisers and campaign aides try to align their strategies with the emotions and resolve of a man whose private and public comments have struck them.
Sitting in the front row at a Tuesday night rally at Adas Israel synagogue, a gathering of Jewish groups near Washington that drew together amid Donald Trump’s attacks on Jews who voted for Harris as self-hating, it was Emhoff who struggled to wipe tears from his eyes and contain his grief as he stood at the microphone.
“This is raw,” he said, telling the hundreds gathered that he was there “as a fellow congregant, a fellow mourner and a Jewish person.”
“Doug saying that the vice president has encouraged him to become more connected to Judaism and see anti-Semitism as a problem may be affirming to Jewish voters,” a friend of Emhoff’s told CNN, “but it also reveals the support they have for each other as a couple and the connection to their faith that is important for all voters to know.”
While Biden is stepping up pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire and hostage release agreement, some outside allies have suggested he would rather be swaying in Trump’s favor.And with voters on all sides of the issue unsure of where Harris stands, any developments could complicate her efforts to win in Michigan, which has sizable Arab and Jewish populations, as well as several other key battlegrounds where the number of Jewish voters exceeds her 2020 margin of victory.
Several people who know Emhoff said the killing of Hersh Goldberg-Polin hit him especially hard. He knew the 23-year-old’s parents and had just met them at the Democratic National Convention. The pain of learning that a hostage just a few years younger than his daughter had been killed just days before Emhoff’s body was discovered was immense. Emhoff was traumatized. One person who knows Emhoff told CNN that going to the vigil was about standing up as a leader, but also about feeling the need to be with the community in the midst of the horror and shock.
“What you are all feeling right now is what I am feeling, and what we are all feeling is what Kamala is hearing directly from me almost daily,” Emhoff said Tuesday night. “I am conveying my feelings to Kamala, not just as VP but as a partner and a wife. She knows. She understands. She cares. She is committed. The loss of Hirsch is deeply personal for both of us, as it is for all of you.”
Introducing the man at the memorial, Ted Deutch, a former Florida congressman and now CEO of the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee, praised him for “reminding the world that an attack on any one of us is an attack on all of us.”
“He understands the unique pain of our cries for justice going unheard, but he also knows that our strength lies in our unity,” he added.
Emhoff has long emphasized that he has no policy role in the administration or campaign, and that remains the case. But that perception has changed. Until six weeks ago, he was married to a leader who respected the policies set by Biden. But since his ascension to the Democratic nomination, his wife has come under scrutiny to see if she will initiate any changes on Israel policy.
Campaign aides said they expect Emhoff to continue to play a key role as he crisscrosses the country campaigning and fundraising, with anxiety already building over how the Oct. 7 anniversary will play out, less than a month until Election Day.
Emhoff said he will not stop speaking out, connecting the events of the Holocaust with the need to repeatedly remind the world of what happened.
“Unless we tell this story again and again, there is no hope of ‘never again,'” he said at the vigil.