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John Minchillo / AP
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's tombstone at Trinity Church Cemetery.
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch will be buried beneath a tombstone bearing the last words of slain journalist Daniel Pearl.
“My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish,” reads the inscription on Koch’s tombstone. The words were among the last uttered by Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, shortly before he was beheaded by Islamic militants in Pakistan in early 2002.
Koch passed away Friday morning of congestive heart failure at the age of 88. His health had flagged in recent weeks, with hospital visits to help combat fluid buildup around his lungs.
The tombstone adorning the burial plot Koch purchased for $20,000 in Trinity Church Cemetery will bear other markers of his Jewish faith. Pearl’s word are joined by a Star of David and the Hebrew confession of faith known as the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, The Lord Our God, The Lord is One.”
While Pearl’s words were spoken with death near, they have come to be understood as a proud affirmation of his Judaism.
“To Daniel Pearl, ‘I am Jewish’ was more than just an affirmation of a simple fact,” the Daniel Pearl Foundation says in material on its website. “To Daniel Pearl, ‘I am Jewish’ meant, ‘My life has meaning, and nothing you do will strip that away from me. Even if my life ends now, I have served a purpose.”
'Irrepressible icon': Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch dies at 88
Koch’s tombstone also bears an epitaph Koch wrote himself, emphasizing his faith and the city he served as mayor.
“He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith,” the inscription 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.”
Former New York City Mayor Edward Irving Koch, a man as colorful as the city he helped save from financial ruin, died Friday of congestive heart failure. He was 88. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
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Ed Koch was a hero to NYC when the city needed help.
Living most of my life on the mean streets of the Northeast, Thee remembers Wild Ed as Mayor of New York quite fondly.
He was simply a good man. And a funny man!
Thee remembers Wild Ed always speaking his mind whenever the mood struck him.
He was a true New Yorker who would get in yer face without thinking twice.I always loved that about Wild Ed.
" How'm I Doin?" he'd always ask. Thee says 'Just fine, Mayor. Now, take a break, sit back and relax.'
Yer Pal Always,
Thee Ox & Friends
I have been in dozens of Jewish cemeteries and looked at thousands of Jewish headstones and never saw anything like this bizarre inscription before.
He had a great sense of humor .. he could have written something funny and memorable there.. but he wrote something hateful and ugly and negative.
200 years from now nobody will remember Daniel Pearl and they will just be like "What the f was this guy's problem"
I'm sorry but your post makes little sense. What exactly is it that you find to be "hateful and ugly and negative"??? This???
Or is it this???
One could easily ask the same question of you that you have asked of the Mayor:
I don't think the Mayor had a problem, unless it was to think maybe New York and the rest of the country might be headed into the territory of Nazi Germany, where Jews and Israel are hated and considered enemies of everyone, this time even the US.
Perhaps he wanted his memorial to be a reminder, should New York continue its trend toward its love affair with the Muslim culture as has other large US cities, that he was Jewish and proud of it.
And there is nothing at all wrong with that.
Rest in peace, Mayor, and be assured that, along with Israel, many of us will never forget.
God Bless Him!!! I am Polish and I am proud!!! I love America and all it stands for. My father taught me that. We are all one. Somehow we have forgotten. God Help Us !!!!!!!