![Mr. Koch already has a plot and a tombstone at Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights. [photo credit: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times]](http://www.vinnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/koch4.jpg "koch4")
New York, NY – Former New York City mayor Ed Koch isn’t ready to die but he’s already made his arrangements for that day.
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The 84-year-old Koch has a gravestone already inscribed and installed in a northern Manhattan cemetery and he has chosen the temple where his funeral will be.
Koch bought his burial plot a year ago at the nondenominational Trinity Church Cemetery and he recently propped up the memorial stone.
He had the stone inscribed with the last words of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”
Koch also includes a familiar Jewish prayer and words he wrote about his faith after he suffered a stroke in the 1980s.
“He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith,” it reads. “He fiercely defended the City of New York, and he fiercely loved its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II.”
Koch’s friends and some neighbors at his Greenwich Village apartment building told the Post that Koch’s bold move matched his larger-than-life personality. “He’s accustomed to having the last word, so this doesn’t surprise me,” one friend said.
While the 84-year-old has in the past suffered a stroke, heart attack and is in rehab for spinal degeneration, most of Koch’s friends the Post contacted said they didn’t think he had fallen ill again or expected to go away anytime soon.
For his part, Koch told the Times he planned on staying alive at least five more years.
“I’m not morbid,” he said. “How many 84-year-olds do you know who are as active as I am? Not many. And how many 84-year-olds do you see in obituaries? A lot.”
Koch said that he doesn’t want to linger in ill health, according to the Times. “I want to die at my desk,” he said.
Koch was mayor of New York from 1977 to 1989.
Is this mishegas something like having tachreichim as a segulah for Yerichas Yomim ( which is NOT a mishegas!!) ?
Lunatic.
Was his parents religious?
Let’s look at the positive site of the men, looks his energy, no kids, no wife, he is alone, but full of life.
TILL 120
At least he is not an atheist!
Koch was always a “Larger THan Life” NUT JOB and this is not surprising, what is surprising that he would profess his love of Yideskeit & arrange to be buried with GOYIM
nice. his going to be buried in church-yard.
Maybe he wrote it himself because he was afraid what other people would write about him!
Interesting how “fiercely proud” he is of his Jewish faith.. Some 20 years when Ed Koch had a radio show on WABC, he used to brag about how he knew he wasn’t suppossed to eat pork, but that “he just loved it”.
I sent him a note about his publicizing it, to which he replied with these words, “Thank you for your concern about my hereafter, but I’ll take my chances”.
I still have that letter sitting around for some reason.
He’s all set, now all he has to do is occupy it.
it is interesting how the articleneglects to mention which was publicized a while back that koch consulted rabbonim as to howhe could halachichally cordon off his kever at the time of his death and plans to followmthier instructions may he never need the kever and maybe he willswitch to a frum place.
The neshamot of yidden do exist and it is a lack of kovod to the niftar to stick them in the ground under an expressway
At least he won’t be bothering the neighbors.
Mayor Koch was a great Mayor and till this day speaks his mind and is not afraid of critics! He has Chassidic blood in his lineage.
Maybe he was a Giants baseball fan growing up? His future kever is not far from the old Polo Grounds.
This is a beautiful stone. He really has a strong love of his Jewish faith. Why must people knock him? Those who knock generally do so to make up for their own deficiencies.
If anyone has a copy of the picture from today’s newspaper, please keep in mind that it is shaimos.
At least he still has his head on his shoulders.
The man is not playing with a full deck. His grandfather would disown him at the drop of a hat.
I remember him as mayor. He was very practical even though he had a reputation as a liberal. When he was mayor, he did things that were common sense and not liberal ideology. Overall, he did a good job despite the horrible times while he was mayor. He was much better than Gloomberg, that’s for sure.
I spoke to the mayor on one of those Tuesday evening radio shows. I was 13 at the time and mentioned that to him and he said, “Oh, in my religion 13 is an important age, it’s when a boy becomes a man”. I was too nervous though to hear or respond to that. Interestingly though the city DID make a drug bust a block away from where I lived perhaps based on my complaint – on the air – of higher crimes in the area.
As for the tombstone, it’s pretty cool – even MORE SO by the fact that he’s willing to have this publicized while er leibt nuch.
One of the problems with only reading forums is that in the interest of space, certain snippets of the news get deleted. he is being buried in a non-denominational cemetery, see yesterday’s NYT for entire story. his Jewishness is not manifested in the Magen Avraham’s z’man krias shema vs the Vilna Gaon’s, chodosh bizman hazeh in chutz l’aretz or the shiur of tzizis. he was born, raised and will die as a “secular” Jew. When he was killing nazis as a US Army infantry lieutenant, standing up to Jesse Jackson for his “Hymietown” remark, marching for Soviet Jewry, Israel and a host of other causes, he always did it as a Proud Jew. Read his latest book, “The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism” for a greater elaboration.
I write this as someone who has been involved with Ed since 1977, when I joined his mayoral campaign, thinking that after he lost I would have a friend in congress who would be able to help mosdos in EY. Little did I know that we would end up in city hall together for the next 11 years. he has remained a friend, a mentsch and Uncle Ed to my children all this time. you are trying to negate all he has done on behalf of his people because he doesn’t observe halacha. I know you are wrong. I believe that his life-risking activities during WW11 and many other things since, will speak volumes when his turn comes. Remember that you can eat kosher and still go to Hell, you can eat pork and still go to Heaven.
Joel Schnur
In response to Joel Schnur: I agree that “you can eat kosher and still go to Hell”, but I am not clear from where you take the next part of your statement that “you can eat pork and still go to Heaven”.??????