Yeshiva University Republicans Host Kansas Senator Brownback,Elliot Resnick, <i>Jewish Press Staff Reporter</i>

Just two days after the Republican' punishing election night, Senator (and potential presidential candidate) Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) addressed 110 Yeshiva University students at a luncheon organized by the Yeshiva University Republicans (YUR).

Despite his party's losses, Brownback said that "the principles that the party has established since Reagan remain true and the country remains a center-right country. A lot of the places where we lost, the Democrats ran as Republicans, they ran on our philosophy."

Brownback acknowledged that "these past couple of years, [the Republicans] failed to execute [their] philosophy." Addressing this failure, he exhorted the crowd: "If you have a philosophy that you're bringing forward, live it, do it. Don't shy away from it, and for heavens sake, don't betray it."

YUR president Ari Lamm, who worked for another Republican senator, Rick Santorum, this past summer said, "I thought that Senator Brownback would be a particularly fascinating personality for YU students to get to know because he - like the Orthodox Jewish community - believes in the power of faith to affect positive change throughout the world."

Brownback entered the House of Representatives in 1994 on the wave of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution and later won a special elecion to the Senate, filling Bob Dole's vacant seat. He won reelection in 1998 and again in 2004 by a landslide, but he does not plan to run in 2010, believing that senators should serve only two full terms. He is a member of several committees, including Judiciary and Appropriations. "An announcement [concerning a possible presidential run] will be coming a little later," he told The Jewish Press.

In his speech, Brownback emphasized that America is not fighting a war on terrorism, which, he said, is merely a tactic, a means to an end - "it's like [fighting] a war on bombs or a war on landmines." Rather, he said, "we're fighting a movement. that wants the United States out of the Middle East and [the establishment of] an Islamic caliphate in the region."

Brownback's speech was not purely conservative in content. For instance, he appeared to support increased American involvement in African affairs. He also struck a moderate tone on Iran, saying, "We need to have an international condemnation and clear movement taking us forward to dealing with Iran on a broad international basis."

In comments to The Jewish Press, Brownback also did not offer a clear strategy for Iraq, although he suggested that "we ought to look more at having the country split into the three separate states - one nation, but Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite areas."

Brownback was candid, however, about the role of religiously inspired values in political debates. "Everybody has values," he said. "And if you come forward and involve the public square, you bring those values with you. There's a wall [between church and state] but the wall is not so high the two can't meet."

Lamm agreed. "Yeshiva students, and Orthodox Jews in general, have so much to offer American society - as long as we stay true to our Torah values. [W]e should not deprive society of the rich values that characterize our faith."

It was with that sentiment in mind that Lamm, a sophomore, formed YUR. YU has seen several Republican clubs in the past, but Lamm said "none of them have ever been able to sustain themselves more than one year. YUR hopes to break that pattern."

Brownback concluded his lecture by extolling the Jewish people. "God bless you for who you are," he said. "You are a gift to the rest of us - the people who brought the knowledge of God to humanity."

"On one of my trips to Israel," he said, "I was looking out [the hotel window] and the star of David flag was flying out over the old city and I was thinking just in amazement that here was a people dispossessed of their land for nearly 2,000 years. Most people groups, once they're dispossessed of their land, they don't last 100 years. I thought to myself, 'God keeps His promises. Nineteen hundred plus years later and they're back. That's amazing.' "

"He sounds very sincere," said YU chancellor Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm after the lecture. "And if he's not sincere, he certainly did a good job by sounding that way," he quipped.

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Yeshiva University Republicans Host Kansas Senator Brownback , Elliot Resnick, <i>Jewish Press Staff Reporter</i>