Video: Baruch Dayan HaEmet – Ed Koch

Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, who also served as a US Congressman back when being a congressman was not a dirty word, passed away from heart failure today. Here's a wonderful video interview with Koch that covers his more than five decades in public life. But it does so quickly, interestingly and very entertainingly. It can do that because love him or hate him, Koch was never dull. And when asked how he wanted to be remembered, Koch replied "as a good Jew."

 

Comments

[Korbendallas72]

BDE

Go check out the VIN thread and see the utterly appalling comments that the frum scum left. Just inhuman, and they call themselves Jews. Barely a BDE.

[Luke]

Been there and had the same reaction to their, as you term, utterly appalling comments. All in the name of religious hypocrisy.

BD"E- Mr. Mayor, you will forever be remembered with a smile by this Yid. Luke.

[ruthie]

thank you for posting this.
when i lived downtown and he walked by he would ALWAYS say hello
with a smile.
he was my neighbor down in the village.
i will miss him very much.

[Jake24]

R.I.P to a great man!!

[WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar]

BDE to the quintessential New Yorker. He made the term 'New Yorker' something to be proud of. He embodied all that is great about being a Jewish New Yorker.

I agree with Korbendallas and Luke above. You see the same filth today on CrownHeights.info. The frumma truly are disgusting.

[Yochanan Lavie]

BDE. He was the greatest mayor since the first Jewish mayor, Fiorella La Guardia. (Not that I judge performance by religion or ethnicity). I wish there were more like him in today's arena.

[Sarek]

WSC - by "New Yorker", you mean City of New York.

Recall his quote when trying to run for Governor of New York State:

{found on syracuse.com}
Koch first told [Playboy] that living in the suburbs was "wasting your life." When asked whether sitting in a subway to get around the city was also a waste of time, he replied:

"'As opposed to wasting time in a car? Or out in the country, wasting time in a pickup truck when you have to drive 20 miles to buy a gingham dress or a Sears Roebuck suit?
This rural America thing -- I'm telling you, it's a joke."

Then he was astonished that nobody north of Yonkers voted for him!

[ah-pee-chorus]

he was a great man and wont be forgotten.

WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar | February 01, 2013 at 02:51 PM

said it great.

[Devorah]

He worked hard and partied little....but enjoyed life to the fullest. RIP

[David]

I can't believe some of the comments at

http://www.vosizneias.com/123011/2013/02/01/ex-mayor-ed-koch-dies-at-88/

They question his Jewishness, funeral and burial arrangements, whether he was adopted or not, claimed he nearly choked eating treif, everything.

I might not have agreed with some of his political views but he was a better Jew than nearly all the frumma put together (with some notable exceptions). And he fought in WWII and did many other useful things in life.

How useful to society can most of the frumma claim to be?

[dd]

he was so sweet and gentle . he will be greatly missed .

[David E Y Sarna]

Koch’s headstone: ‘My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.’
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/koch-epitaph-father-jewish-mother-jewish-jewish-article-1.1253155

[Rocky]

David Sarna: Do you think he had the courtesy to ask Daniel Pearl's parents if they would mind? Those were among Daniel Pearl's last words before he was beheaded by Pakistani terrorists in 2002.

[Jeff]

How useful to society can most of the frumma claim to be?

Whadda ya mean? Their constant learning keeps the earth spinning on its axis. If you believe the earth spins on its axis. Which is kefira.

A"H Ed.

[Rueven Aharon]

Ed Koch zt"l was truly a mensch.

[Rose]

A great man. I was deeply saddened at the news.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

The levayah is being webcast from Our Lady of Emanu-El, the Reformo-Moorish Cathedral on Fifth Ave. Monday at 11. Find it on www.nyc.gov. Also on NY1 TV.

New York, a city of characters, deserved to have him - a character - as mayor.

[Rebitzman]

David Sarna: Do you think he had the courtesy to ask Daniel Pearl's parents if they would mind? Those were among Daniel Pearl's last words before he was beheaded by Pakistani terrorists in 2002.

Ed Kich knew they were Daniel Pearl's words - had his arent's permission, and they both died on February 1st....

[Rebitzman]

Koch.......

IPad really not made for typing......

[king Sol]

Maybe we can put him in a yidishe cemetery

[Eli, what me messiah?]

Shmarya, correction of what he says at the end. He did not say he wanted to be remembered as a "good Jew," but as "a proud Jew, who loved the people of the City of New York, and who did his best to make their lives better."

I think it makes a difference, both that he was proud and that he connected this with serving everyone, not just his own.

[bimbo]

he was a gay shigetz

[Jeff]

he was a gay shigetz

And you're a frum asshole.

Next.

[put a square into a hole]

to jeff

2 wrongs don't a right.
Koch is making a great chillul Hashem by being beried in a goyish cemetery.
He was a bachlor that lived in the village.
100% GAY!!!!!

may he burn in hell

[Wool Silk Cotton, sports star and rock superstar]

Put a square,
It is considered a secular cemetery. And it was his decision. And what difference does it make? Dead is dead. Location of the body in one hole vs. another hole in a different neighborhood? Please, get over the hate and the craziness from hundreds of years ago. Are Jews and nonJews also buried in the mass graves from atrocities of the past?
There's a Jewish cemetery in Newark on South Orange Avenue where you couldn't be buried unless you were Shomer Shabbos. If you were not, they buried you on the other side of the field. And what is the status of that Shomer Shabbos cemetery today? I was there not long ago. It is a wreck. Nobody visits anyone there. Who is still bragging about being buried in a Shomer Shabbos cemetery?
Is God angry? Isn't God always angry? Maybe God should be focusing on all the kids with cancer in hospitals, and starvation and suffering all over the world. Instead, your God cares about where a body gets buried. What a childish view of God you have.

And so what if he was gay? You have family members that are gay. Do you hate them too?

"may he burn in hell" What a disgusting and perverted excuse for a Jew and a human being you are.

[old time brooklyn]

@ Wool Silk Cotton, sports star and rock superstar

well put

[Isidore]

Ed Koch was a great man and a proud Jew. To all those who have the Chutzpa to impugn the mayor's Jewishness, consider the following tidbits:
Mayor Koch once said in an interview that his parents spoke Yiddish at home and that he learned to read the Yiddish Forward as a youth. When his father was old and had poor eyesight, Ed would muddle through the articles aloud.
Ed Koch said many times that countless relatives on both his mother's side and father's side were murdered in the camps in WWII.
Ed Koch was not ritually observant to any great degree, but he would attend Rosh HaShana services at Park East Synagogue and Rabbi Arthur Schneier would always honor him with carrying a Torah. Koch once told Leon Charney that he always cried when doing so.
In their last years, Mayor Koch's parents lived on (I believe) Cruger Avenue off of Lydig in Pelham Parkway. I was told by a fellow Bronxite that, once retired, his father would go to Minyan every day.
Of course, Koch was less observant than, say, Mayor Abe Beame, a"h whose wife made sure they would have a kosher kitchen in Gracie Mansion. Beame actually spoke a very fluent Yiddish and was, ritually speaking, a traditionalist. But that does not make Ed Koch any less Jewish.
I am proud to have had the opportunity to meet "New York's Mayor for Life" on several occasions. He was always frank and vivacious.
My late uncle, a Kahanist, told me about the time when Rabbi Meir Kahane and Mayor Koch had a yelling match on the steps of City Hall.
By the way, "Trinity" is an officially non-sectarian cemetery. Koch simply wanted to be buried in Manhattan and, I am told, petitioned to secure a plot at Shearith Israel's burial grounds. Unfortunately, their grounds were already filled up. It's sad that he did not make a bigger case of it, because I think something could have been done. Yehi Zichro Baruch.

[put a square into a hole]

To WSC
Thank you for worring about what God has to take of in YOUR mind.
Koch has a yiddishe neshama which is crying bitter tears for all that he has done not according to the Torah. He might have been a "good" man as an american citizen but as a JEW!!!!!!!
Please don't lecture me about all the "frum" jews who are pedophiles and crooks. They will have to answer to God when their time is up.

[Isidore]

@Put a square...
For someone who claims to be Frum you have a lot to learn about Nichum Avelim and Kevod HaBeriyot. For what you said above about Mayor Koch burning in Hell - you should be ashamed of yourself. G-d will judge all well-meaning, basically good people "LeChaf Zechut" and is not out to burn his children in lakes of fire. But if that's what you think of G-d, then go become a Catholic, or a Calvinist.

[Eli, what me messiah?]

put a square, I don't know what your point you intended to make, beyond conspicuously broadcasting that you're homophobic.

but even queerer is your use of quotation marks. you really have no clue, do you? or maybe I should say you "have" no "clue".

[Jeff]

may he burn in hell

Posted by: put a square into a hole | February 03, 2013 at 12:10 PM

I spoke to Hashem. He told me he read your comments here and gave your place in Gan Eden to Koch.

[Jeff]

Oh, and WSC - wonderfully said.

This blog does seem to attract the dregs of the frum world.

[Jeff]

Oooh, ouch!

[Moshe Aron kestenbaum, williamsburg]

I have tears in my eyes, Shema yisrael Hashem eloikanu Hashem ached, I am a Jew , my father is a Jew , I will always be a Jew, I have tears in my eyes , mayor Koch died as a proud Jew a lesson for us all he is a zadik , may his Neshama be a Zechus for all of us

[A Yid]

How Ed Koch Honored My Son
The late New York mayor told me he wanted to be remembered by my son Daniel Pearl’s final words: ‘I am Jewish.’
By Judea Pearl|February 4, 2013 7:00 AM http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/123319/how-ed-koch-honored-my-son

RE: David Sarna: Do you think he had the courtesy to ask Daniel Pearl's parents if they would mind? Those were among Daniel Pearl's last words before he was beheaded by Pakistani terrorists in 2002.

Posted by: Rocky | February 01, 2013 at 05:32 PM