It has hardly been remarked upon that Ron Klain, the current White House chief of staff, is Jewish. Among his predecessors in the position were Rahm Emanuel, whose father was an Irgun veteran, and Jack Lew, an Orthodox Jew. But it was the late Ken Duberstein, as Tevi Troy writes, who paved the way:
Ken Duberstein, the first Jewish White House chief of staff in history, has died at seventy-seven. He served the Reagan administration ably and well, and went on to have a long private-sector career serving as a wise man of Washington.
A Brooklyn native, Duberstein went to Franklin & Marshall College before moving to Washington, DC, where he interned for the New York Republican senator Jacob Javits and earned a master’s degree from American University. He wrote his thesis on ethnic voting patterns in his native Brooklyn.
As chief of staff, Duberstein developed a very strong working relationship with Colin Powell, then the national-security adviser. Duberstein later recalled that he and Powell “ran the U.S. government for two years. A black [man] who was raised on the streets of the South Bronx and a Brooklyn Jew were in these positions for the most conservative Republican president of the 20th century.” He and Powell remained close long after the administration ended.
Read more on National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/ken-duberstein-r-i-p/