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BDE Mayor Koch
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vintagebknyc




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 8:34 am
merelyme wrote:
vintagebknyc wrote:
Isramom8 wrote:
When a Jew with some merits dies, appropriate behavior on our part is is to say baruch dayan emes and mention true, good things about the niftar.


a: you'll note that I did say things about his merits.
b: I don't appreciate your questioning my level of frumkiet (sp?)


Where is your level of frumkeit questioned?


above, when I'm accused of not knowing what one is supposed to do when a person dies.
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happybeingamom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 8:56 am
Achrei Mois Kedoshim Emor

He will be judged by Hashem no need for us to.
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ChossidMom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 9:06 am
happybeingamom wrote:
Achrei Mois Kedoshim Emor

He will be judged by Hashem no need for us to.


Well said!
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Isramom8




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 10:12 am
vintagebknyc wrote:
Isramom8 wrote:
When a Jew with some merits dies, appropriate behavior on our part is is to say baruch dayan emes and mention true, good things about the niftar.


a: you'll note that I did say things about his merits.
b: I don't appreciate your questioning my level of frumkiet (sp?)


I apologize. My intention wasn't to question your level of frumkeit, but rather just to state my opinion.

Also, I feel like, gee, I almost walked with him in the Israel parade.
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vintagebknyc




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 10:18 am
Isramom8 wrote:
vintagebknyc wrote:
Isramom8 wrote:
When a Jew with some merits dies, appropriate behavior on our part is is to say baruch dayan emes and mention true, good things about the niftar.


a: you'll note that I did say things about his merits.
b: I don't appreciate your questioning my level of frumkiet (sp?)


I apologize. My intention wasn't to question your level of frumkeit, but rather just to state my opinion.

Also, I feel like, gee, I almost walked with him in the Israel parade.


thanks isramom.

can someone explain where the line is drawn here? how many merits versus how many sins? when one outweighs the ither?
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Isramom8




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 10:20 am
What's the point of mentioning bad stuff? We don't at a funeral. We don't at a shiva house. It's shiva now for the man.
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Barbara




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 10:29 am
vintagebknyc wrote:
Isramom8 wrote:
vintagebknyc wrote:
Isramom8 wrote:
When a Jew with some merits dies, appropriate behavior on our part is is to say baruch dayan emes and mention true, good things about the niftar.


a: you'll note that I did say things about his merits.
b: I don't appreciate your questioning my level of frumkiet (sp?)


I apologize. My intention wasn't to question your level of frumkeit, but rather just to state my opinion.

Also, I feel like, gee, I almost walked with him in the Israel parade.


thanks isramom.

can someone explain where the line is drawn here? how many merits versus how many sins? when one outweighs the ither?


Friends, New Yorkers, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Ed Koch, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Ed Koch?

I don't think it's wrong to discuss and debate his political record, including his response to AIDS, on his death.

His response to the AIDS crisis was inexcusably slow. But I don't think its fair to mention that without also mentioning that he introduced anti-discrimination bills, appointed openly gay staffers, and was the first New York mayor to march in the Pride parade. In 1983, he created the city’s Office of Gay and Lesbian Health Concerns.

The funny thing is that, with all this talk of Koch's record on AIDS, the enduring question everyone asks is "was he, or was he not, gay." And I liked his answer -- its no one's business, one way or another.
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Barbara




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 10:34 am
Isramom8 wrote:
What's the point of mentioning bad stuff? We don't at a funeral. We don't at a shiva house. It's shiva now for the man.


Is there anyone to sit shiva or say kaddish for him? He never had kids. Wonder if either of his siblings is still alive.
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vintagebknyc




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 11:03 am
I guess what I'm asking is if there's a person who does only really horrible things, but then does one nice/good thing, do we forget the horrible things? when weberman dies, are we going to say baruch dayan emes?

(not comparing koch to weberman, so let's just get this out of the way right now)
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Isramom8




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 11:53 am
Barbara wrote:
Isramom8 wrote:
What's the point of mentioning bad stuff? We don't at a funeral. We don't at a shiva house. It's shiva now for the man.


Is there anyone to sit shiva or say kaddish for him? He never had kids. Wonder if either of his siblings is still alive.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02.....;_r=0
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ChossidMom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 1:52 pm
Got this on the FiveTowns.com newsletter:



Sinatra's NY NY Played as Casket Walked Outside
Today at Temple Emanuel in Manhattan
Edward Koch was eulogized.
Diane M. Coffey his chief of staff recalled that at one point
she and Koch had had a bitter fight about something and remained
silent for 3 days. On the fourth day, Koch brought her into the office to insist
that the silence must be stopped for it was affecting the entire office.
She insisted that he apologize and he said he was sorry.
He then went out to the office and stated "She was wrong, but I said I'm sorry."

President Clinton revealed a stack of letters Koch wrote him while
he was President. While he was passionate about safety and gun control,
he was even more passiionate at insisting that underpriveleged children
who committed crimes, but later served the community or armed forces
should have their records sealed, so they could have a new start.
His law partner Mr. Gill recalled that once walking with Koch, a passerby
said, Mayor we need you back, to which he replied "NOOO. You forced me
out of office, you deserved to be punished."

General Consul Aharoni of Israel discussed his long
time friendship with Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek
and he was respected by Mayors worldwide. He was a friend
of Kollek's, a friend of Israel's, a friend of the Jewish people.
All spoke about his filter-less way of talking,
straight forward and with humor.
As the honor guard was walking his casket out of the Synagogue,
the organ played Sinatra's New York, New York.
He loved the people and loved New York. He was real.
He is the last of a dying breed, and the world and New York
will miss him.
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ChossidMom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 2:06 pm
And this from Hatzolah's Facebook wall:


Ed Koch and United Hatzalah
A few months after the #2 bus bombing Ed Koch came to Israel with Michael Bloomberg. He came to support the people of Israel and took bus #2 from the Kotel to where the memorial was set up. He told Eli Beer, UH's president, that whenever something happens to Israel it feels like it is happening personally to him.
Our heart goes out to Mr. Koch's family! We will miss him, a good friend of the people of Israel, sorely!
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Hakol Letovah




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 4:47 pm
I pray for his resttful menucha, he was a great person.

http://www.bhol.co.il/Article......cat=1

anyone who always finds a need to say something negative, can you please do it somewhere else?

here we appreciate people!

Thank you
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marshmellow




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 04 2013, 7:21 pm
I love him. He loved Israel and the Jewish people with all his heart. He was great. We need to learn from his example as sadly many Jews do not share his love for our people and our land and we are failing in this foremost commandment as a result. I really admire him. May he rest in peace.
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ChossidMom




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 05 2013, 2:22 am
http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Ed-Ko.....?s=fb

My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.
by Rabbi Benjamin Blech

With the words he chose to be inscribed on his tombstone, Ed Koch, the iconic New York Mayor who passed away last Friday, made it very clear how he wanted most to be remembered.

And they reminded me of a family disagreement in which I had to acknowledge that I was wrong and my daughter was right.

It was a number of years ago when my daughter Tamar was making plans to apply to law school. Having gotten a perfect score on her LSAT exam, the highest mark in the country, she wasn’t nervous about getting accepted at one of the top universities. But she knew that an important element that would be considered by the very best schools was the essay she had to submit explaining why she had chosen law as a career and defining herself as a person.

When she told me she had finished writing it, I asked if I might see it. As I began to read it I found myself filled with apprehension. Her opening words were “I am an Orthodox Jew.” She continued by linking the Jewish love for law with its divine origin at Sinai. She explained that her love for Torah made her seek a way to seek the betterment of the world through a commitment to legal redress for the innocent and lawful punishment for the criminal.

Her presentation was masterful, yet I was afraid. Afraid because I was part of a generation that still bore the emotional scars of centuries of anti-Semitism. Afraid because I had lived through the years of the Holocaust and been forced to leave the land of my birth when a Nazi takeover threatened. Afraid because even though I now live in “the land of the free” I still didn’t feel free enough to believe that my daughter could openly identify herself as an Orthodox Jew without subjecting herself to prejudiced repercussions.

“I don’t think you should send the essay in the way it is,” I advised my daughter. Tamar thought about what I said. Respectfully she concluded she had to be true to herself. She decided that if by identifying herself through her faith she was closing the door to professional advancement, she would rather not enter those portals. “And who knows,” she added, “perhaps the fact that I take pride in my heritage will be viewed as a positive.”

Yes, my daughter did get accepted to every one of the top law schools in the country. Now fast forward a decade to learn the real end of the story. I was teaching a class at Yeshiva University when a young man knocked on the door. I immediately recognized him as a former student. Out of breath, he told me he rushed up from Columbia University Law School because he had to share the story of what had just happened in one of his classes.

The conversation had turned into a discussion about the required essays. Someone asked the professor, “Now that we’re in the school, can you tell us what exactly you were looking for in those essays?” The professor responded that he couldn’t really put it into words but he could only give a general guideline by referencing what he felt was the best essay they had ever received. He recalled that it was written by some girl with a strange last name that’s difficult to pronounce – “something like Blech.”

“If this is your daughter,” my former student said, “I knew you’d love to hear the story.”

I assured him that indeed it was my daughter, and that I was so grateful to him for sharing it with me. I also confessed how I almost messed it up by suggesting to my daughter that it was too dangerous to be submitted as written!

If taking pride in one’s identity proved to be helpful rather than hindrance to Tamar, it is certainly instructive to learn how much this trait meant to the former Mayor of New York city.

As the eulogies are offered and the tributes pour in with a lengthy list of Ed Koch’s accomplishments, there are so many things the mayor could have been proud of. Yet what Koch chose to stand in perpetuity as a summary of his life’s meaning were the last words of Daniel Pearl before he was brutally murdered by Pakistani terrorists:

My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish

Two years before his death, in his personal blog in the Huffington Post, What’s On My Tombstone And Why, Koch told his readers that this was what he had prepared to be inscribed as his epitaph. So strongly did he feel about the importance of this recognition for every Jew that he added, “I believe those words should be part of the annual services on the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur, and should be repeated by the congregants”.

Beneath this powerful expression of identity, Koch commissioned the inscription of the Shema in Hebrew and English followed by these words: "He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York and he fiercely defended its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II."

Koch did not hesitate to define himself in this sequence – a proud Jew, a loving New Yorker and a patriotic American.

In accord with his wishes, the words by his grave express with pride the last words of Daniel Pearl.

Is it merely coincidence then that Ed Koch died on the first day of February, the very day on which Daniel Pearl was murdered exactly 11 years ago?
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