Fifty plus years ago a Jewish bookkeeper who worked for my Dad's business told me "Your father is a mensch. If you pay attention to the things he does, someday you might be as well."

He was. When an employee fell down stairs at home and could not work for a year, my father paid his salary every week -- there was no disability insurance. When the man recovered, he quit. I asked my father if he was angry about that. He said it didn't matter: the man and his family needed to pay their bills.

Don't imagine that we were wealthy. This was a small business that he and his partner had started with $50 in capital and renting a booth at Howard Johnson’s restaurant just a few years before this happened. My dad had a wife and three kids to support himself.

My father was a mensch -- we were not Jewish but he deserved that word.