Jack Kemp, Rest in Peace

I grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.  The first time I ever saw the name "Jack Kemp" was when my father took me to a Pittsburgh Steelers football game at the late, lamented Forbes Field in 1957 against the Green Bay Packers. 

Kemp was listed in the program that day as the third string quarterback behind the starter, Earl Morrall and his backup, the Steelers' first round draft pick, Len Dawson.  Prior to reading the program, I did not even know that the Steelers had a third string quarterback.

I actually remember that game, because it was the first National Football League game I ever saw in person, and the two teams, the pre-Lombardi Packers and the hapless "same old Steelers" of the 1950s were exemplars of futility on the gridiron.  Also, the Packers' first round draft pick out of Notre Dame, Paul Hornung was then playing fullback, rather than his later Packer halfback position, and was injured in the game.  Ultimately, however, the real significance of that game to me was my first awareness of Jack Kemp, a man whose vision and ideas did so much to change the course of American history for the better.

It was in the 1970s as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the Buffalo area that Jack Kemp became a person of positive influence and impact on the American scene.  The various newspaper obituaries will recount his partnership with University of Southern California Professor Arthur Laffer in promoting supply-side economics and his co-sponsorship with Senator William Roth (R-Delaware) of the Kemp-Roth tax cut plan which was passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.  Yet in New Jersey, Jack Kemp had a special role in improving the quality of urban life which is indeed historic.

As recounted by Dr. Alvin Felzenberg in his landmark book, Governor Tom Kean: From the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9-11 Commission, Tom Kean developed both a close personal and working relationship with Kemp.  The most significant result of that relationship, as noted by Felzenberg, was Kean's support of Kemp's proposal for urban enterprise zones.  Although it never was passed by the Congress, Kean succeeded in obtaining passage of the program in New Jersey.  When Kean signed the legislation into law in Camden in 1983, Kemp was at his side.

The New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone program is one of the most successful urban economic incentive programs in modern American history.  I was privileged to have been appointed to chair the program by former New Jersey Commerce Commissioner Gualberto "Gil" Medina in 1994, and I served in this capacity until I left the Commerce Commission to become the Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission in 1998.  It will always be a special source of pride for me to have chaired a program created by a partnership of two great Americans, Tom Kean and Jack Kemp.

For Jack Kemp, it was essential that the Republican Party develop a much better relationship with urban minorities.  I will never forget a campaign stop on behalf of Christie Whitman that Jack made in Camden during the Friday before the election in 1993.  I picked up from school my son, Neil, then age 13, and we drove into Camden to greet Whitman and Kemp, together with key campaign staffers.  Neil and I posed for pictures with Kemp and my good friend and then Executive Director of the Camden County Republican Committee Rich Ambrosino.

What I remember so vividly from that event is the way Jack engaged in conversations with African-American youth and passed the football with them as well.  He could relate to African-Americans and Hispanics in a way few Republicans could, again with the notable exception of Tom Kean.  Kemp was that kind of Republican who preferred visiting an urban neighborhood and having discussions with African-American and Hispanic youth to spending time fundraising at a suburban country club.

I saw Jack Kemp in person a number of times down through the years.  My most memorable encounter, however, was when I stood with 250,000 other Americans on the National Mall in Washington on Sunday, December 6, 1987 as a participant in the March on Washington for Soviet Jewry and listened to Jack Kemp advocating our cause.  No other member of the House of Representatives more effectively and ardently championed the cause of Soviet Jewry than Jack Kemp.  In fact, the issue of Soviet Jewry was a cause not only of Jack Kemp but of his family as well - his wife, Joanne, for years served as a Co-Chair of Congressional Wives for Soviet Jewry.

Indeed, it was as an American Jew that I felt most deeply the greatness of Jack Kemp.  He grew up in the Wilshire area of Los Angeles, then a predominantly Jewish area of the city and felt a deep personal kinship with the American Jewish community.  He was not only a friend to the Jewish community - he was a true brother for us.  Many politicians, both Democrat and Republican, give lip service in support of Israel in order to attract Jewish voters.  Jack Kemp, however, was totally committed to Israel and Zionism, and the State of Israel never had a better friend in Congress than Jack Kemp.

In fact, Jack had such an extensive knowledge of Judaism and Jewish history that he often quoted Rabbi Moses Maimonides in his speeches.  Rabbi Maimonides was also known as the Rambam, an acronym of his Hebrew name, Rabbi Moshe ben (son of) Maimon.  The Rambam, who lived in 12th century Spain, Morocco, and Egypt, was one of the truly outstanding personages of Jewish history - he was perhaps the most outstanding rabbi in history, as well as being the greatest physician in the world in his time, and a world renowned philosopher as well.  His book, the Guide for the Perplexed is one of the most influential and widely read books in the history of philosophy.  In fact, there is a famous Jewish saying that "from Moses (in the Bible) to Moses (Maimonides), there was none greater."

The following quote from the Rambam is a remarkable summary of the life philosophy of Jack Kemp, a man who lived eight centuries after the Rambam:

"Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity's golden ladder."

Jack often stated that he would tell his children every day, "Be a leader."  He was a leader who led by asserting the power of ideas.  He was one of those rare individuals of both goodness and greatness.  Rest in peace, Jack Kemp - you truly helped make the world a better place and have earned your place in Heaven.

Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and seven federally recognized Indian nations.