Former Mayor Ed Koch Gets Misquoted

The eminently quotable former Mayor Ed Koch found his words at the center of a controversy today.

As Buzzfeed reported, conservative Catholic League president Bill Donohue sent some intense emails recently to Shalom Center Director Rabbi Arthur Waskow, threatening the Rabbi over an article he wrote in the Huffington Post in which he criticized the Vatican and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Donohue backed up his arguments with what he said was an old Koch saying, writing, “Ed Koch, my friend, once said that Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends since they have so few of them. Think about that the next time you feel compelled to attack my religion.”

This appears to be a very loose interpretation of remarks Koch made earlier this year that were reported by the New York Post’s David Seifman.

Speaking to public policy organization Beit Morasha of Jerusalem, Koch reportedly said,

“We’re 13 million Jews in the whole world — less than one-tenth of 1 percent. And we need allies. The best ally we can have is the Catholic Church. Oh, you can go back in history when they were not great allies. But they proved to be. It started with Pope John XXIII and Pope [John] Paul II. We have to reach out to them.”