By Bill Simons

No one, except possibly Fiorello La Guardia, enjoyed being mayor of New York City more than Ed Koch. A shameless booster, Koch loved his city. He epitomized the Jewish New Yorker of his generation. Koch’s loud but warm know-it-all style reminded you of cabbies, deli counterman and your favorite uncle. With his quintessential chutzpah, Koch recorded a video that prefaced his New York Times obituary, asking: “Do you miss me?” Yeah, Ed, we do. 
Koch died over a decade ago, but he is timely again. The late Lenny Bruce, a brilliant satirist, asserted, “[I]f you live in New York, you’re Jewish.” New York City was and is a kaleidoscope of diverse ethnic and racial groups. In terms of cultural sensibility, albeit not strict demographics, there was, however, an element of truth to Bruce’s observation. Koch epitomized that New York, which in the era of current Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to many an artifact of a yesterday. Koch is a handy benchmark for differentiating the city’s past from its present. Referencing that change, one of my correspondents offered an aside, “Ed Koch!? He is probably turning in his grave.” 
Koch would not have found it problematic that Mamdani is a Muslim. He would have taken strong issue, however, with Mamdani’s refusal to reject the rhetoric of “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” as well as advocacy for withholding defensive military aid to Israel. Since the founding of the modern State of Israel, every New York mayor has journeyed to Israel either during his tenure or subsequently. Mamdani’s failure to affirm that tradition, alone of the 2025 candidates, would have further raised Koch’s hackles. And Mamdani’s claim that he will order the arrest of the Israeli prime minister when Benjamin Netanyahu next comes to New York City would have elicited a lecture on the law from Koch. 
Today American Jews are divided amongst themselves, partly reflecting the sharp polarization of contemporary America but also because numbers of us in the diaspora believe that the Netanyahu government has pursued policies that violate Jewish ethics. Thus, for many Jews of a certain age, the Koch years elicit nostalgia, enhanced by rose-colored glasses, for a bygone era when antisemitism appeared on the retreat, Israel a beacon of democracy, and a Jewish sensibility flourished in New York. 
Several Jews have sought the NYC mayoralty, but only three have won the position. (La Guardia, the son of a Jewish mother, identified as an Episcopalian.) The first, Abe Beame, was undone by the city’s mid-1970s fiscal woes. Billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg governed New York (2002-13) ably but possessed a refined reserve at odds with the tempo of NYC. The emotive Koch was the most haimish of New York’s mayors. 
Born in the Bronx to Jewish immigrant parents, Koch grew up in Newark, NJ. During World War II service in Europe, Koch attained the rank of sergeant, earned two battle stars and demonstrated bravery in combat. After the war, he graduated from CCNY and New York University School of Law. During the 1960s, attorney Koch emerged as a Democratic leader in Manhattan, the borough that became his permanent home, and won two terms in the city council before serving as a Manhattan congressman from 1969-77.  
During the 1977 mayoral campaign, supporters of Koch’s main opponent, Mario Cuomo, exploited speculation about Koch’s bachelor status by hanging posters that read “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo.” As a counter Koch frequently appeared in public with Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America, sometimes engaging in hand-holding and kissing. After his death, The New York Times published a front page, investigative article claiming that Koch was a closeted gay attuned to the political consequences of coming out of the closet.  
Koch defeated Cuomo in the 1977 primary and general elections to win the mayoralty. A self-proclaimed “liberal with sanity,” the Democratic Koch, over 12 years, served three consecutive terms as mayor (January 1, 1978-December 31, 1989). Bluntly admitting that he would hate leaving NYC for upstate cost Koch the 1982 gubernatorial race. Nonetheless, he was highly popular during most of his run as mayor. Koch garnered landslide shares of the vote in his 1981 (74.6 percent) and 1985 (78 percent) re-elections. 
History demands notation of serious failures, notably Koch’s belated and underfunded response to the fearful toll of the AIDS epidemic. His pugnacity roiled race relations. And Koch dispensed political patronage. 
A fair recounting of the Koch mayoralty, however, also acknowledges substantive achievements. He brought the city’s finances back from the fiscal precipice, reduced crime, enlarged the housing stock, secured federal loans, achieved détente with unions, championed neighborhoods, and moved lesbian and gay rights from aspiration to law. Historian Jonathan Soffer contends that Koch’s record is “stunning in its dimensions, especially considering the fiscal and political obstacles he faced.” 
Quite apart from his deeds, Koch’s energy, bombast, brash wit and omnipresence helped New York regain its bounce. At street corners, subway exits and virtually anywhere in the city, New Yorkers grew accustomed to their 6’2”, depilated mayor greeting them with an exuberant “How am I doing?” 
Corruption scandals of subordinates, sans any evidence of his involvement, cost Koch his 1989 election quest for an unprecedented fourth term. In the generation that followed, Koch retained a robust schedule, never passing up an opportunity to share his opinions. Donning judicial robes, he did a TV stint presiding over “The People’s Court.” A movie maven, Koch rated films on an online series. Appearing in numerous network shows and films, Koch always portrayed his favorite character, himself. Post-mayoral, Koch also returned to the practice of law. 
Koch, aged 88, died in 2013. He chose to be buried at the Episcopal Trinity Church cemetery in Washington Heights because it was the only cemetery in the borough with space for new graves, and Koch refused to leave his beloved Manhattan. When he purchased the plot, a sign was installed at the section entrance announcing, “The Jewish Gate.” And, of course, Koch wrote the inscription on his gravestone. Following the Shema, it reads: “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.” In conclusion, it echoes the final words of murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”