Former New York City mayor Ed Koch writes a candid and often delightful regular column that he e-mails out and that is picked up by newspapers all over. Sometimes his choice of topics is a bit quirky. One of his most recent columns, a series of short takes on a number of important issues, concludes…
Dear Bintel Brief: My son’s bar mitzvah is later this month, and I am so proud of him. At the event, he has expressed a desire to honor his mother, my wife, who died last year after a long illness. But he has also expressed concern that he would be injecting a dose of sadness…
Dear Bintel Brief: My son married a non-Jewish woman. They have baby boy, and decided not to have a circumcision. My husband and I have told my son and his wife how important this is to us, but they still will not do it. Recently, we have read more about the health benefits of circumcision….
Dear Bintel Brief, I have a dilemma concerning my upcoming wedding. During the reception we plan to have five or so guests of honor give toasts. I asked one of my closest childhood friends how he would feel about being one of the toasters and I immediately sensed an unexpected ambivalence on his part. Once…
In the Forward’s Bintel Brief advice column this week, Ed Koch — New York City’s 105th mayor — speaks candidly about his bout with depression. Responding to a question from an ailing elderly woman who feels her life is no longer worth living, Koch shares how, in 1989, when he was the mayor of New…
Dear Bintel Brief: Until very recently, I considered myself an average American woman. I am foreign-born, but I’ve been here for many years — and I love the country that adopted me. I voted diligently in every election. I was also very active and productive. I worked as a volunteer. I was athletic. Suddenly, without…
Edward I. Koch, the 105th mayor of New York — and the city’s second Jewish mayor — will be the Forward’s next guest Bintel Brief advice columnist. Koch, 84, is an author of more than a dozen books, including, most recently, “The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism” (Palgrave, 2008), written with Rafael Medoff. A…
Some of the final words spoken by Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl before he was beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan — “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish” — are inscribed on the tombstone of Mayor Edward Koch, who led New York City from 1978–1989. So too is the…
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