Blue brothers
EACH YEAR AT the Israel Day parade, the police contingent is greeted with roaring applause — a fact that doesn’t surprise the two highest-ranking Jewish members of the NYPD, who say Judaism and policing share many of the same fundamental values and that cops have long enjoyed support from the Jewish community.
“There’s really nothing more Jewish than being a police officer,” said chaplain Alvin Kass, the longest-serving chaplain in department history. “To try to take care of people, protect life, safety, security, well-being, I can’t think of anything which is a greater fulfillment of God’s will.”
Kass, 82, and Dr. Eli Kleinman, chief surgeon for the NYPD, have marched at the 40,000-person event for more than 20 years. Ahead of Sunday’s parade, they spoke passionately about the principles that guide their work and faith.
Kleinman, who’s worked with the NYPD since 1986 and became a chief in 2003, is the eldest child of two Holocaust survivors from Poland. He called his faith “the most important part of my personal life.”
“My father was exceedingly proud that I was in the police department,” he said. “We’re not police officers and we are never on the front lines doing what the police officers do on a day-today basis. But we see what they do, we know their travails, we know their families anxieties, we're with them at some of those poignant moments in their lives.”
“Being a police officer, from the very beginning of time, has been an essential function in society, indispensable to survival,” said Kass, who serves as the religious leader of NYPD Shomrim Society.
“People recognize fully that life would not be safe without (police officers) and that these people are putting their lives on the line,” Kleinman added.
The top doc and octogenarian rabbi — who often work together as a team to ensure the police officers’ health and wellness — said cops of all faiths receive waves of gratitude at the parade.
“The crowds are quiet until the NYPD Jewish police contingent comes, and you get all this cheering and clapping,” Kass said. “Jewish people are very pro-police.”
“The Israel Day parade is a great parade for the NYPD and for everybody, and the NYPD is treated royally there,” Kleinman told the Daily News. “You're not going to see any banners criticizing the NYPD at that parade.”