New Jersey Jewish News
New Jersey Feature
Kean backs stem-cell research on an ‘intimate’ trip to Israel
JERUSALEM — State Sen. Tom Kean Jr., who is running for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate, expressed support for controversial embryonic stem-cell research on a visit to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem last week.
Kean, visiting Hadassah at the culmination of a weeklong trip to Israel, told hospital officials that he supports such research and reported about problems obtaining approval for state initiatives in New Jersey. He also spoke to Hadassah director-general Professor Shlomo Mor-Yosef about the hospital’s collaboration with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick in preparing for mega-terrorist attacks.
Mor-Yosef said the hospital’s stem-cell research had cured mice with Parkinson’s disease and that testing on monkeys and then humans would soon follow. He said Hadassah was an international pioneer in stem-cell research and had even secured funding for the research from the U.S. government.
Kean was visiting Israel for the first time on what he termed an educational visit. He was following in the footsteps of his father, former NJ Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who visited Israel three times. The younger Kean viewed a plaque at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum honoring his grandfather, Robert Winthrop Kean, one of the earliest members of Congress to warn the United States about the impending Holocaust.
The visit’s first day coincided with Holocaust Memorial Day, during which a two-minute siren sounded nationwide to memorialize the victims. As Kean approached the luggage carousel at Ben-Gurion International Airport, the siren went off, and Kean joined Israelis standing in painful reflection.
“The most moving experience on the trip for me was seeing everyone stop and pray during the siren,” Kean told NJJN in an interview at his Jerusalem hotel. “It was extraordinarily memorable for me to experience Holocaust Day so intimately, to be part of such a special moment in time and then go to Yad Vashem that afternoon.”
Kean came with a delegation of NJ Republican pro-Israel activists, including Short Hills publisher Steven Klinghoffer; Livingston resident and Corporation for Public Broadcasting chair Cheyl Halpern; Lakewood attorney Sean Gertner and his wife, Marla; and Johnson & Johnson company group chair Gerald Ostrov of East Brunswick.
Also along were Teaneck attorney Martin Fineberg; Mark Levenson, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Clifton-Passaic, and his daughter, Hadassah; and Justin Richards, an assistant to the senator.
Kean, hoping to unseat Sen. Robert Menendez in November, said he came to Israel to get a feel for its terrain and geography.
“Starting next year in the U.S. Senate, I will be very involved with issues that relate to Israel and the Mideast in a direct fashion,” Kean said. “I have been a strong supporter of Israel throughout my career. I am glad I got to meet with many Israelis, from members of parliament to ordinary citizens. Coming with people who have had strong and varied experiences with Israel was also an important part of the trip.”
When Menendez came to Israel last year, as a member of the House International Relations Committee, he led the last congressional mission that met with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before his career-ending stroke.
When Kean visited the Knesset, the highest-ranking official he met was Meir Sheetrit of the Kadima Party, who was Education and Transportation minister at the time and was named Construction and Housing minister on Monday. He also met former Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom of Likud and Labor Member of Knesset Colette Avital.
Kean met with victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks and with Jews who had been evacuated from Gaza Strip settlements. He toured a military base outside the Gaza Strip with IDF commanders and viewed land where Israeli settlements stood until recently and that is now being used by Palestinians to fire rockets at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
As Kean looked out over Gaza, he saw black smoke emanating from Deir El-Balah, south of Gaza City. He later found out it was the result of what the Israeli army said was an Israeli aircraft attack on two cars packed with rockets. Israel said the attack killed one Islamic Jihad militant and critically wounded another.
“Seeing this made it very real and enabled me to understand with a real perspective the threats Israeli citizens live with each and every day of their lives,” Kean said. “I felt it was imperative for me to come to Israel so that as a U.S. senator I will have that real-life experience.”
Kean said he had always supported foreign aid allocations and he is sure he would continue in the Senate.
In Jerusalem’s Old City, Kean toured the Western Wall tunnels, visited Christian holy sites, and met the Armenian Christian patriarch of Jerusalem. He also visited several communities that have partnered with United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, including the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council and Kibbutz Erez outside the Gaza Strip, the Gush Etzion bloc of West Bank settlements, and the low-income Ramat Eliyahu neighborhood of Rishon Letzion. Klinghoffer is a former president of UJC MetroWest, although organizers emphasized the trip was privately sponsored and not an official mission of any federation.
In Rishon, Kean met with people involved with Project Atzmaut, UJC MetroWest’s pioneering program to help improve the lives of Ethiopian immigrants. Perhaps the saddest part of the trip was a meeting with American
immigrants Seth and Sherri Mandell, whose young son Koby was murdered by terrorists near their home in the West Bank community of Tekoa in 2001.
The Israel activists who accompanied Kean on the trip said that during the visit with the Mandells, they watched his facial expressions and saw that he was deeply moved. They said they were glad that he proved himself able to relate to people on a human level and not merely as a politician.
“He is a real mensch,” Klinghoffer said. “This guy is the real deal. He came with the right background, and having this personal experience reinforces the senses and the feelings that he already had. I’ve dealt with many candidates and elected officials. Tom stands out in the way he relates to Israel.”
Ostrov said he was glad to expose the senator to Hadassah Hospital, where he and his wife are major donors.
“I have been impressed with him the whole trip,” Ostrov said. “He’s gotten a knowledge base that he can use to govern. He has asked good questions that show that he understands.”
Kean faces Bergen County financial data analyst John Ginty in the June Republican primary. A Quinnipiac University poll last week predicted that Kean would win the primary by a landslide but it found that he trailed Menendez by six points.
Comment | |
All rights reserved