arts & entertainment

Always The Politician

The story of a New York mayor — liberal
Democrat, fiscal conservative and law-and-order
advocate — comes to Detroit Public Television.

Tom Tugend

Jewish Journal of Greater LA

N

ew York Mayor Edward Irving
Koch, universally addressed as
"Ed:' was a master of timing and
promotion.
So one may assume that he would have
applauded the timing of his departure, at
age 88, on Feb. 1, 2013, which coincided
with the theatrical release in his home city
of the documentary Koch to boffo box
office.
The film will be shown as part of PBS's
POV series at 10 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22, on
Detroit Public Television.
Born in the Bronx to Jewish immigrants
from Poland, Koch became not only the
chief executive but also the incarnation of
New York City — brash, argumentative,
resilient, as much a man of action as of
words.
As one observer noted on his passing,
"If Koch made it to heaven, he would let it
be known that the place was quite inferior
to Manhattan."
First-time filmmaker Neil Barsky, along
with producer Jenny Carchman and editor
Juliet Weber, has done a remarkable job in
catching his subject's multifaceted person-
ality and the ups and downs of the city he
loved and molded.
Previously a reporter for the Long Island
Jewish Press, New York Daily News and

—

Wall Street Journal, Barsky said that as
director, he approached the story "like a
journalise'
In our era of colorless politicians —
think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
or House Speaker John Boehner — one
longs for the man who could say, after he
was defeated for a fourth term as mayor,
"The people have spoken — and the peo-
ple must be punished:"
After serving as an infantryman during
World War II, Koch became a lawyer and
won a seat in Congress, serving from 1969
to 1977.
Later that year, he was elected mayor, at
a time when the Big Apple seemed to be
falling apart, plagued by crime, graffiti, a
subway strike and in a deep financial hole.
By the end of his first four-year term,
Koch had largely turned the city around,
and for his second term he was endorsed
by both the Democratic and Republican
parties, earning about 75 percent of the
vote.
He launched an ambitious public-hous-
ing program and cleaned up a porn-ridden
Times Square, but his political career went
downhill during his third term.
Many of his political appointees were
caught in bribery and extortion scandals,
and although Koch himself was never
accused of wrongdoing, apparently even
New Yorkers were getting tired of their
high-decibel mayor.

After being defeated in 1989 for a fourth
term, Koch "retired" to a second career
as political commentator and movie critic
and succeeded Judge Joseph Wapner as the
presiding presence on the television series
The People's Court.
Koch's book, Mayor, became a bestseller
and later a successful Off-Broadway musi-
cal of the same title.
Members of the Tribe might have
wished that the film focused a bit more on
Koch's Jewishness, but his ethnic heritage
was so obviously imprinted in his DNA
that maybe it didn't have to be spelled out.
Koch was a secular Jew, Barsky said,
who attended synagogue only on High
Holy Days, and he instructed that he be
buried at the Trinity Church Cemetery
in Upper Manhattan. "It was the only
Manhattan cemetery that still had space
for new burials, and Ed simply couldn't
bear the idea of New Jersey as his last rest-
ing place Barsky said.
Koch was a lifelong bachelor and after
a day of public appearances, applause
and catcalls, he would return alone to his
apartment, often cooking his own meals.
Throughout his election campaigns, he
was dogged by rumors that he was gay, a
death knell for any politician in the 1970s
and '80s.
When asked about his sexual orienta-
tion in the documentary, Koch smiles
pleasantly before answering, "None of your

by Shawn Levy, 46, with a screen-
play by Tropper.

sioner. His first big
case is the investi-
gation of the murder
of the parents of
the young Bruce
Wayne, played by

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

if2 At The Movies
This is Where I Leave You, opening

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cm)

118

Friday, Sept. 19, is based on a 2009
novel of the same name by Jonathan
Tropper, 44, who is Modern
Orthodox.
The plot: After their father dies,
the four combative siblings of the
Altman family reunite at their child-
hood home for a
week of sitting shi-
vah. The siblings
are played by Jason
Bateman, Tina Fey,
Adam Driver and
Corey Stoll, 38.
Jane Fonda plays
their Jewish mother.
Stoll
The film is directed

September 18 • 2014

TV Premieres

The following new series, debuting
next week, have a Jewish cast mem-
ber:
Forever, premiering at 10 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 22, on ABC, is a
supernatural drama starring loan
Gruffudd as Harry, a New York City
medical examiner who is immortal.
He studies the dead to try and dis-
cover why. Judd Hirsch, 79, plays
Abe, Harry's best friend and confi-
dant.
Debuting at 8 p.m. Monday, Sept.
22, on FOX is the highly touted
Gotham, a Batman spin-off of sorts.
Benjamin McKenzie plays Detective
Jim Gordon, who is fated in later life
to become Gotham's police commis-

David Mazouz, 13,

a Sephardic actor
from Los Angeles.
Bruce Wayne, of course, grows up to
be Batman.
Also starting on
Monday, Sept. 22,
at 9 p.m. on CBS, is
Scorpion. The plot: A
group of tech nerds
form a team to solve
the world's most
difficult problems.

Thomas

Above: Ed Koch and director Neil
Barsky at a preview screening for the
documentary Koch at Lincoln Center
on Jan. 13, 2013. Koch died just a few
weeks later — Feb. 1, the day the film
premiered theatrically.

(expletive) business:'
The one extended scene that shows
Koch as a Jew and in a family setting is
at a break-the-fast dinner at the end of
Yom Kippur, at the home of his sister
and her extended family. The occasion so
mellowed the mayor, he allows a brash
nephew to get the better of him in a politi-
cal argument.
But it is during a visit with his chief of
staff, Diane Coffey, to preview his tomb-
stone, that Koch's connection to his heri-
tage and faith is fully expressed.
Chiseled on the tombstone are a Magen
David, the Shema prayer in Hebrew and
English, and the final words of journalist
Daniel Pearl before he was beheaded by
Muslim extremists: "My father is Jewish,
my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish"
There is also a bench, so that people can
sit while visiting him, Koch explains.

❑

Koch airs on Detroit Public

Television-Channel 56 at 10 p.m.
Monday, Sept 22.

team member.
Debuting at 8 p.m. Wednesday,
Sept. 24, on ABC is Black-ish.
Created by and starring comedian
Anthony Anderson, it explores one
suburban black father's efforts to
establish a cultural identity for his
kids. His biracial wife, Rainbow, is
played by Tracee Ellis Ross, 41, a
former star of Girlfriends and the
daughter of Supremes lead vocal-
ist Diana Ross and
Ross' ex-husband,

Robert Ellis
Silberstein, 67. The

Eddie Kaye Thomas,

33 (Finch in the
American Pie films) plays Toby, a

Tracee Ellis

Ross

couple's four chil-
dren include Andre,
who really wants a
bar mitzvah even
though the family is
not Jewish.

❑