Koch Kever: Kiddush/Khillul-Hashem?

Mayor Maintains Manhattan Matzeva.

Former NYC Mayor Edward Koch passed away this past week. He chose a Manhattan cemetery as his final resting spot. Unfortunately, that cemetery is not Jewish, as it is owned by Trinity Church.

The enigma of choosing such a plot might cause one to think that he turned his back on his religion, yet the plot thickens when one realizes that he chose some very Jewish messages to appear on his tombstone.

This mystery is solved when one discovers that he wanted to be interred in the city where he served as mayor for three terms. Yet all burial places, aside from this one, were full.

And so in death, just as in life, EIK's proud Jewishness is flaunted, yet his turning his back on Orthodox Jewish morals is everlasting.

From his Wiki Entry:

Koch requested that the marker bear the Star of David and the words from the Hebrew prayer Shema Yisrael, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" as well as the last words of journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by Islamic terrorists in 2002: "My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish."[52] He died 11 years to the day after Daniel Pearl.[53] A final epitaph Koch wrote himself follows: "He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. 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