Blogging the Omer Day 9, Ed Koch refuses to leave Manhattan
Week two, day two:
Gevurah of Gevurah
Ed Koch, the irascible former mayor of New York City, has purchased a burial plot in Trinity Church, the only uptown cemetery still accepting burials. According to the Times (of course!) Says Koch, “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me.”
The Times reports:
Mr. Koch also said he had ordered a tombstone to “adorn my grave upon my death, which I hope won’t be for another 8 to 10 years.”
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.”
…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.
He was also instructed to have rails installed around his plot, so he ordered them.
Being buried in Manhattan, Mr. Koch said, would also make it easier for former constituents to visit.
“I’m extending an open invitation,” he said.
Although the plot is non-denominational, I am very struck by this irony, of someone declaring his Jewishness by… buying a burial plot in a churchyard, and then declaring it “the Gate of the Jews.”
He is spending a lot of money on a place where his remains will be, but I wonder, what could that money have done for the Jewish community.
Speaking more generally, I have often been struck when doing funerals, by how odd it is that people who aren’t particularly interested in being active in the Jewish community while alive want to be buried by a rabbi, after it can’t make much of difference any more. There’s some odd niggle that I can’t quite put my finger on about people who want to be Jews in their deepest moments, but who don’t do Jewish. On this day of gevurah in gevurah, it seems to me that we need to be asking how to make our American Jewish sisters and brothers think about being Jewish as something which is more than a -meaningful, perhaps, but only a – hobby, something to be done for one’s own satisfaction, at one’s own convenience, but not to interfere with the business of life.
Perhaps some of you out there in blogoland can get at that niggle better than I.
Anyone know what the “gate for the Jews” and the rails around his plot have to do with being buried in a non-Jewish cemetery? The NYT article seems to imply that some rabbi told him these things would make it (more?) kosher.
OT: has anyone (besides me) ever noticed that Ed Koch bears a striking resemblance to ‘Grandpa’ Al Lewis?
kol,
it strikes me that the desire to be buried / have the approval of / have one’s burial officiated by rabbinate (unfortunately, often perceived to be to the adjudicators and purveyors of jewish authenticity) is doing jewish in a very serious manner. certainly, this instance of ‘doing’ won’t eventuate in more jewish doing (i’d guess that ed won’t be doing much once he’s lowered into the plot) – but its a deeply symbolic choice for ed to make. i’d go even out on a limb and suggest that the fact that ed has spoken publicly about this some eight or nine years before he plans to utilise his plot is a very important public statement about how ed is doing jewish.
certainly, i’m removed from the US context and i can only know as much as wikipedia can tell me ’bout ed – but i’m going to take a guess that given that he was born in the bronx, was the district leader of greenwich village and a mayor of new york – the decision to remain in manhattan is a decision that resonates on an ethnic level as well. given that the practice and conceptualisation of judaism is often as an ethnicity, the act of burial is making a last(ing) and final statement about what doing jewish means for ed.
i would strongly disagree with you that this event should prompt a searching for “how to make our American Jewish sisters and brothers think about being Jewish as something which is more than a -meaningful, perhaps, but only a – hobby, something to be done for one’s own satisfaction, at one’s own convenience, but not to interfere with the business of life.”
i would suggest that moments like this should challenge our own questions and conceptualisations of what it means to ‘do’ jewish, who gets to say what is and isn’t ‘doing’, and why that’s an important question to ask in the first place. ah, i hope that didn’t come across as condescending – i mean that, reading your post, these are the questions that are prompted for me.
certainly, ritual resonates deeply for us all. and we often choose to engage in ritual simply because it is the ritual itself that gives meaning – and not because of what the ritual declares / intends. i suspect that when secular + ethnic judaisms formalise additional ritualised practices, religious figures will feature less prominently within the lives of those for whom judaism is not a religious undertaking. i would guess that this is a worrying statement for those deeply invested in today’s institutionalised judaisms. but i suspect that your niggle might actually be a misplaced question.
-r
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.â€
My God, how profound.
Not to denigrate Daniel Pearl as a mensch in lots of ways, nor the outrage of his murder, but his wife was not Jewish and, especially with him gone, it is unlikely that his child will be raised a Jew.
As for secular Jews, some of my best friends are secular Jews, and secular Jewish organizations have done great work in creating rituals and a culture of Jewish secularism, so far, in over a century of organized Jewish secular culture, it seems unsuccessful in maintaining itself in any great numbers past the second generation. It would be wonderful if that changes, but often the clear Jewish identification and culture fades in a few generations, in most cases.
As to the gate and railing, it makes the plot, at least by legal fiction, into a separate Jewish cemetery. Similarly, there have been questions of Jewish cemeteries having a section for mixed religion couples, and many opinions say it is permissible but should be separated by a fence, or even a hedge.
Oy, that needed editing!
Not to denigrate Daniel Pearl as a mensch in lots of ways, nor the outrage of his murder, but his wife was not Jewish and, especially with him gone, it is unlikely that his child will be raised a Jew.
Do you know the family personally? I don’t either, but if you don’t, how can you presume to know anything one way or the other about how his child will be raised?
When my (Jewish) uncle married my (non-Jewish) aunt, they committed to raise the children Jewish. This did not change one bit upon my uncle’s death, and my aunt continues to raise two Jewish children as a single parent. One of them is having a bar mitzvah this summer.