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Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review May 5, 2009 / 11 Iyar 5769

Jack French Kemp, RIP

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Jack Kemp was supposed to read this column. A dinner in his honor was scheduled for next week and I had timed the column to appear just prior. The last his friends had heard, he was improving. Now it's too late.


Jack Kemp was deserving of tribute in so many ways — as a leader, as a thinker, as a family man, and as a Christian (are you still allowed to say that?).


In 1986, when the chessboard was being arranged for the 1988 presidential race, I chose to leave my post in the Reagan White House and go to work for the most exciting political figure in the Republican Party — Congressman Jack Kemp. A speechwriter for Jack Kemp learns many things — superfluity being first. I'm not sure why Jack ever hired speechwriters. We all had the same experience. You labored over a 30-minute address. He would go over it and suggest changes (he once corrected my prose by telling me that it "read like an article in Commentary" rather than a campaign speech) and we would proceed to the event. Jack would mount the podium, put the speech on the lectern, and talk for 30 or 40 minutes without once referring to the text in front of him. He would pull articles out of his jacket pocket or respond to something that he heard on the news that morning. His fertile mind was always working. When I was introduced to supporters, they would say "Oh, you write Jack Kemp's speeches!" and I would reply "I write them. He seldom delivers them."


But what Jack had to say would change the Republican Party forever. An autodidact, he had studied economics and history, and became a tireless evangelist for supply-side economics. He peppered his speeches with references to "capital" and "labor" — which this speechwriter found a little dry — but he also preached "opportunity" and "growth," which resonated. He recognized that capitalism, and the unique opportunities it can foster, was far more important for those in the middle and at the bottom of the economic pyramid than it was for those at the top. Jack truly and deeply wanted to give people the chance to improve themselves. He had seen how it could work close up. His father had started with nothing. He borrowed money to buy one truck and eventually developed his business into a profitable trucking company. Jack wanted to distribute that kind of opportunity as broadly as possible. As the author of the Kemp/Roth tax cutting legislation, Jack became the godfather of the Reagan domestic agenda.


The United States Congress is chock full of lawyers and other accomplished men and women. But no one read more avidly than the former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. I remember Irving Kristol marveling over his first meeting with Kemp in the 1970s. Kemp had asked Kristol to suggest a reading list. Kristol politely, if skeptically, complied. A few weeks later, Kristol ran into Kemp again and was stunned to discover that Jack had read every book on the list and was ready to discuss them!


Even the fact that Jack became a winning quarterback was a tribute to his grit and buoyant spirit. Though he had been a college star, his pro career did not get off to an easy start. Nothing was handed to him. The AP described it this way: "Kemp was a 17th round 1957 NFL draft pick by the Detroit Lions, but was cut before the season began. After being released by three more NFL teams and the Canadian Football League over the next three years, he joined the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers as a free agent in 1960. A waivers foul-up two years later would land him with the Buffalo Bills, who got him at the bargain basement price of $100." And yet, Jack Kemp led the Bills to the 1964 and 1965 American Football League's championships, and was voted the league's most valuable player in 1965. He co-founded and became the president of the AFL Players Association, and found time to serve in the Army reserves. He would later say that pro football was excellent preparation for politics: "When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy."


Kemp was more than a supply-side evangelist. He was also a serious student of foreign policy. While his hopes for mankind were expansive, his tolerance for dictators and tyrants was nonexistent. His love of capitalism was inseparable from his love of liberty.


Most of all when I think of Jack Kemp, I think of his tremendous devotion to his wife, Joanne, and to their four children and 17 grandchildren. Though he achieved great things in public life, he managed to do it without neglecting his family. That is a man in full. He will be greatly missed.

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