NYT obituary for former Brooklyn congressman Stephen Solarz, 70.
When he was elected to the House in 1974, Mr. Solarz finagled a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee with the idea that he could appeal to his largely Jewish district by attending to the needs of Israel. He immediately threw himself into foreign policy issues, visiting leaders of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Syria in his first month on the job. He soon became a leading voice in the House on foreign affairs.
Is this true? Was it purely out of a sense of constituency service? I doubt it. Some of the devotion came from Solarz himself. Let’s talk about Jewish identity construction and the Israel lobby.
