Ed Koch Admires Michelle Obama’s Legs
By Daniel Treiman
Former New York City mayor Ed Koch writes a candid and often delightful regular column that he e-mails out and that is picked up by newspapers all over. Sometimes his choice of topics is a bit quirky. One of his most recent columns, a series of short takes on a number of important issues, concludes with a short take on short shorts, specifically those worn by the first lady.
Koch writes:
This is not a gossip column, so forgive me for mentioning that Michelle Obama, who is not only intellectually brilliant, has become a true fashion trendsetter. First, bare arms and now, short shorts. So far as I can recall, no First Lady in our history has dared the shorts. Jackie Kennedy Onassis did the bare arms. Three cheers for Michelle Obama.
April 13, 2009, 12:47am
Former Mayor Ed Koch on His Bout With Depression
By Gabrielle Birkner
In the Forward’s Bintel Brief advice column this week, Ed Koch — New York City’s 105th mayor — speaks candidly about his bout with depression. Responding to a question from an ailing elderly woman who feels her life is no longer worth living, Koch shares how, in 1989, when he was the mayor of New York, “There were times when I could not get out of bed because of my depressed state and cried without reason.” To read Koch’s Bintel Brief column in full, click here.
Koch talked more about his battle with depression last fall, during a conversation with local television personality Budd Mishkin at the 92nd Street Y. An clip from that event can be seen below:
March 2, 2009, 12:45am
What's on Mayor Koch's Tombstone
By Gabrielle Birkner
Some of the final words spoken by Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl before he was beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan — “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish” — are inscribed on the tombstone of Mayor Edward Koch, who led New York City from 1978–1989. So too is the Shema prayer, in Hebrew and English; a Star of David, and the words “He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith.”
Former Mayor Koch is 84, and still very much alive. (In fact, he’ll be the Forward’s guest Bintel Brief advice columnist in April.) But he isn’t waiting for a posthumous unveiling to show off his tombstone, erected at the non-denominational Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights.
Nor is he waiting to plan his own funeral at Temple Emanu-El, according to a The New York Times profile, in which Koch says he’s at peace with his political rivals and with the legacy he’ll leave when he dies. Until then, the former mayor, a partner at the New York law firm of Bryan Cave, says there’s work to be done. “[Koch] is particularly concerned about anti-Semitism and wants to bring Jews and Catholics closer together,” The Times reports.
The same weekend that this profile of Koch was published, Daniel Pearl’s father spoke to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. In the interview, Judea Pearl derided both Former President Jimmy Carter’s approach to the Middle East Conflict and the upcoming Durban II anti-racism summit. He also warned of “latent anti-Semitic pressure in the world” of which “Gaza took the lid off.”
April 23, 2008, 12:11pm
Ed Koch Digs His Own Grave
By Daniel Treiman
Ed Koch is planning ahead. The busy 83-year-old former New York City mayor has no immediate plans to kick the bucket, but he says he has already ordered a tombstone to “adorn my grave upon my death, which I hope won’t be for another 8 to 10 years.”And the consummate New Yorker is determined to spend the hereafter reposing in the heart of the city that he governed from 1977 to 1989. “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me,” Koch tells The New York Times.
This determination, it appears, left him with only one option for a final resting spot: the Trinity Church Cemetery in Upper Manhattan, a nondenominational cemetery run by the Episcopal Diocese that claims to be the only burial ground on the densely populated island still accepting new reservations for long-term stays.
But just because Koch is opting to be buried on church-run property doesn’t mean he’s checking his Jewish identity at the cemetery gates. Far from it, The New York Times reports:
Mr. Koch chose a plot on what he described as a “small mountain” overlooking Amsterdam Avenue, and he researched the propriety of being buried in a non-Jewish cemetery.
“I called a number of rabbis to see if this was doable,” he said. “I was going to do it anyway, but it would be nice if it were doable traditionally.”
He said he had been advised to request that the gate nearest his plot be inscribed as “the gate for the Jews,” and the cemetery agreed.
And what will Koch’s tombstone say? The Times has that part of the story, too:
Carved on the tombstone is the most important prayer in Judaism, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” in English, Hebrew and a transliteration, and the last words of the journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by Islamic terrorists: “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.”
Hat tip: Gothamist.
Read my recent interview with Koch — in which he talked about his life — here.
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