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Rabbi Alvin Kass, longest-serving NYPD chaplain famed for 9/11 response, dies at 89
Less than a week after rushing to Ground Zero as a police chaplain on 9/11, Rabbi Alvin Kass led Rosh Hashanah services — not only for his Brooklyn congregation but at a makeshift synagogue at LaGuardia Airport for emergency responders who had flooded into New York City after the terrorist attacks.
“It was,” he would later say, “the most meaningful religious service in my career.”
Kass died Tuesday at 89 as the longest-serving chaplain in the New York Police Department, with a career that included responses to global terrorism, local violence and the intimate needs of police officers — as well as a hostage crisis that he famously resolved with a non-kosher pastrami sandwich.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Kass attended Camp Ramah before enrolling at Columbia University in 1953. His freshman-year roommates there were Robert Alter, who would become a preeminent translator of the Bible, and Shalom Schwartz, later a leading psychologist in Israel.
After graduating from college, he earned both a doctorate from New York University and ordination as a Conservative rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America before joining the U.S. Air Force as a chaplain. Returning stateside, he took a pulpit in Queens before being urged to join the city’s police department as a chaplain.
At the time, he was only the third Jewish chaplain to work for the NYPD. He would become its longest-serving and the first three-star chaplain, working under eight mayors and 21 police chiefs, while also helming the East Midwood Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Brooklyn, for 36 years until 2014.
The NYC Benevolent Association called Kass “a true pillar of the NYPD” in a Facebook post mourning him. “Every time we bowed our heads for one of his prayers, we appreciated his deep faith, his old-school wit and his unshakable devotion to the men and women who protect NYC,” the group said. “He was a champion of all that is good and noble about our profession. May his memory be a blessing.”
NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, mourned Kass in a statement following his death. She noted that he was the youngest chaplain in the department’s history when he came on at age 30.
“Nearly six decades later, he remained its spiritual heart — a source of strength, guidance, and faith for generations of police officers and their families,” Tisch said, adding, “His loss is immeasurable. His example is everlasting.”
Within the NYPD, Kass was responsible for the spiritual care of all officers but especially the thousands who are Jewish. Kass successfully advocated for the right of Jewish police officers not to work on Shabbat and major Jewish holidays while also serving as the primary Jewish figure for Jewish officers who were otherwise unaffiliated with Jewish communities. He also served as spiritual director of the Shomrim Society, a fraternal organization for Jewish police officers.
“The main responsibility for a spiritual leader is to bring all people closer together, including those of your own faith,” he told the New York Jewish Week when he was honored as one of “36 to Watch” in 2024. “I feel particularly proud that the Shomrim Society embraces Jews of all backgrounds and points of view. The organization is a paragon of the unity that ought to bind all Jews together.”
NYPD Chief Chaplain Rabbi Alvin Kass receiving the Medal of Honor at the 23rd annual Ellis Island Medals of Honor ceremony and gala on Ellis Island, New York City, May 9, 2009. (George Napolitano/Getty Images)
After the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Kass reported to Ground Zero, where he encountered a police officer he described as “crying like a baby” as well as the families of officers who were unaccounted for. Later, he attended the funerals of ever police officer who was killed that day, including two who were Jewish.
“I told their families that you’re supposed to say ‘Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha’olam, dayan ha emet’: Blessed is the Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who is a judge of truth, or truthful judge. This means, essentially, that He knows what He’s doing. We don’t,” Kass wrote in an essay for The Forward on the 20th anniversary of the attack.
“We can’t comprehend what He’s doing very often, but presumably He knows what he is doing, and we submit. We bow our head to what is often inscrutable and incomprehensible, and we accept it with a measure of faith and hope,” he continued. “That really is the essential message of Judaism, in the face of evil.”
Kass would later say that 9/11 marked a transition in the role of the chaplain within the NYPD, peeling back some of the stigma that had been associated with seeking spiritual care in a department where machismo was long the currency.
Kass’ own encounters on the job ranged from lofty to the low-brow. He was pulled away from his son’s bar mitzvah celebration to tend to an officer who had been shot, according to a 2006 profile in the Columbia alumni magazine. On another occasion he flew upstate between Friday night services and Shabbat morning services to inform a family that their officer son had been murdered.
One of Kass’s more famous escapades came in 1981 when he was called in to negotiate with a Jewish man who had taken a woman hostage.
“I talked to him all night to give up his gun,” Kass recalled in a 2012 interview with the Wall Street Journal, neither the first nor last time he would recount the incident. “I was an utter failure. But by morning he was hungry.”
The hostage team ordered pastrami sandwiches from the (nonkosher) Carnegie Deli for the hostage-taker and for Kass. Kass traded one overstuffed sandwich for the man’s gun — but it turned out he had another. Kass, who ate only kosher meat, had not touched his sandwich and persuaded the man to accept it in exchange for the other gun. The police swooped in and ended the crisis.
The NYPD commissioner noted the incident when promoting Kass to three-star chief in 2016, saying, “In a feat that has become legendary, you were able to trade two pastrami sandwiches for the man’s two guns.”
But for Kass, whose small stature added to a widespread impression of modesty, the real feat came not in his ability to disarm the hostage-taker but in the man’s appetite. “Have you seen the sandwiches from the Carnegie Deli?” he recalled. “They’re huge.”
Kass is survived by his three children and three grandchildren. He was married for 54 years to Miryom Kass, an educator, until her death in 2017. Speaking at the 2016 ceremony marking 50 years with the NYPD, Kass said about Miryom, “She has been by confidant, my partner, my co-worker, she’s been my inspiration, she’s been my chaplain.”
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The post Rabbi Alvin Kass, longest-serving NYPD chaplain famed for 9/11 response, dies at 89 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Herzog Says Wellbeing of Israelis His Only Concern in Deal With Netanyahu’s ‘Extraordinary’ Pardon Request
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
i24 News – In an interview with Politico published on Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog remained tight-lipped on whether he intended to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extraordinary” pardon request, saying that his decision will be motivated by what’s best for Israel.
“There is a process which goes through the Justice Ministry and my legal adviser and so on. This is certainly an extraordinary request and above all when dealing with it I will consider what is the best interest of the Israeli people,” Herzog said. “The well-being of the Israeli people is my first, second and third priority.”
Asked specifically about President Donald Trump’s request, Herzog said “I respect President Trump’s friendship and his opinion,” adding, “Israel, naturally, is a sovereign country.”
Herzog addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the US-Israel ties and the shifts in public opinion on Israel.
“One has to remember that the fountains of America, of American life, are based on biblical values, just like ours. And therefore, I believe that the underlying fountain that we all drink from is the same,” he said. “However, I am following very closely the trends that I see in the American public eye and the attitude, especially of young people, on Israel.”
“It comes from TikTok,” he said of the torrent of hostility toward Israel that has engulf swathes of U.S. opinion since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, “from a very shallow discourse of the current situation, pictures or viewpoints, and doesn’t judge from the big picture, which is, is Israel a strategic ally? Yes. Is Israel contributing to American national interests, security interests? Absolutely yes. Is Israel a beacon of democracy in the Middle East? Absolutely yes.”
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Syria’s Sharaa Charges Israel ‘Exports Its Crises to Other Countries’
FILE PHOTO: Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday escalated his messaging against Israel at the Doha forum.
“Israel is working to export its own crises to other countries and escape accountability for the massacres it committed in the Gaza Strip, justifying everything with security concerns,” he said.
“Meanwhile, Syria, since its liberation, has sent positive messages aimed at establishing the foundations of regional stability.
“Israel has responded to Syria with extreme violence, launching over 1,000 airstrikes and carrying out 400 incursions into its territory. The latest of these attacks was the massacre it perpetrated in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, which claimed dozens of lives.
“We are working with influential countries worldwide to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied after December 8, 2014, and all countries support this demand.
“Syria insists on Israel’s adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. The demand for a demilitarized zone raises many questions. Who will protect this zone if there is no Syrian army presence?
“Any agreement must guarantee Syria’s interests, as it is Syria that is subjected to Israeli attacks. So, who should be demanding a buffer zone and withdrawal?”
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Turkey’s Fidan: Gaza Governance Must Precede Hamas Disarmament in Ceasefire Deal
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends a press conference following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2025. Photo: Pavel Bednyakov/Pool via REUTERS
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Saturday that not advancing the US-backed Gaza ceasefire plan to its next stage would be a “huge failure” for the world and Washington, noting that President Donald Trump had personally led the push.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, Fidan said a credible Palestinian civil administration and a vetted, trained police force needed to be in place to allow Hamas to disarm, and that the group was prepared to hand over control of the enclave.
“First of all, we need to see that the Palestinian committee of technical people are taking over the administration of Gaza, then we need to see that the police force is being formed to police Gaza – again, by the Palestinians, not Hamas.”
NATO member Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s assault on Gaza. It played a key role in brokering the ceasefire deal, signing the agreement as a guarantor. It has repeatedly expressed its willingness to join efforts to monitor the accord’s implementation, a move Israel strongly opposes.
Talks to advance the next phase of President Trump’s plan to end the two-year conflict in Gaza are continuing.
The plan envisages an interim technocratic Palestinian administration in the enclave, overseen by an international “board of peace” and supported by a multinational security force. Negotiations over the composition and mandate of that force have proven particularly difficult.
Fidan said the Gaza police force would be backed by the international stabilisation force. He added that Washington was pressing Israel over Turkey’s bid to join the force, to which it has voiced readiness to deploy troops if needed.
FIDAN SAYS KURDISH SDF IN SYRIA NOT WILLING TO INTEGRATE
Asked about a landmark deal in March in which the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus agreed that the SDF would be integrated into Syria’s state structures, Fidan said signals from the SDF showed it had “no intention” of honouring the accord, and was instead seeking to sidestep it.
Ankara, which considers the SDF a terrorist organisation, has threatened military action if it does not comply, setting a deadline of the end of the year.
“I think they (SDF) should understand that the command and control should come from one place,” Fidan added. “There can be no two armies in any given country. So there can only be one army, one command structure … But in local administration, they can reach a different settlement and different understandings.”
Almost a year after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, Fidan said some issues of minority rights were unresolved, insisting that Turkey’s backing of the new Syrian government was not a “blank cheque” to oppress any groups.
He said Damascus was taking steps toward national unity, but that Israeli “destabilisation policies” were the chief obstacle.
Israel has frequently struck southwestern Syria this year, citing threats from militant groups and the need to protect the Druze community near the frontier. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he expected Syria to establish a demilitarised buffer zone from Damascus to the border.
TURKEY: U.S. COULD REMOVE SANCTIONS ‘VERY SOON’
Fidan also said Washington’s initial 28-point plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war was just a “starting point,” and that it was now evolving in a new format. He said mediation by US officials was “on the right path.”
“I just hope that nobody leaves the table and the Americans are not frustrated, because sometimes the mediators can be frustrated if they don’t see enough encouragement from both sides.”
Asked about efforts to lift US sanctions imposed in 2020 over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems, he said both sides were working on it, adding: “I believe we’ll soon find a way to remove that obstacle.”