Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Edward KocheEdward Koche
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 617

Q:

As a footnote here, are you familiar with the way LaGuardia would campaign relative to this ethnicity, where he was partly Jewish, had an Italian name...

Koch:

His mother was Jewish and his father was Italian.

Q:

Which made many Italians think he was Catholic, but he was apparently a practicing Protestant.

Koch:

That is correct. Well, with me there's a slight difference, and that is: everybody knows I'm Jewish, except the Jews. Now they do, but in the beginning the Jews didn't know I was Jewish. My name is not exclusively Jewish. Koch is often-times not Jewish. And it took a long time... Now they know.

Q:

They thought you were a Germanic Protestant.

Koch:

Right. That which I'm pointing to now, that Hanukah candle, I was given as the Jew of the Year not very long ago -- this November or December of 1975 -- because of all of my efforts on behalf of Syrian Jews and Jews in this country and Soviet Jews. And I have said to people: “Listen, I am involved in so many fights for liberty. Should I consider the liberty of my brethren least of all? Never, never.” I make that very clear.





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help