Hochul's 87-year-old father dies suddenly during her trip to Israel

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 87-year-old father died as she was in the middle of her solidarity visit to Israel.

John Courtney, who was living in Florida, died of a sudden brain hemorrhage on Wednesday evening. Hochul learned of his death as she was visiting the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Hochul, dressed in black, was seen leaving a traditional note in the wall that included a reference to both Israel and her father. She appeared to wipe away a tear before stepping away.

Hochul’s office did not release a formal statement about her father’s death, but she was seen being consoled by her staff who had accompanied her on the trip.

“I love you guys,” Hochul was heard saying, according to a pool report

A retired clerk at a steel plant in Buffalo, Courtney had left a voice memo for Hochul which she had listened to before departing to Israel from New York City, a pool report Tuesday said.

The governor has frequently invoked her upbringing in Western New York and her parents’ working class backgrounds.

Known as Jack, Hochul’s father attended her first swearing-in as governor when she took office in August 2021. In her State of the State address in January, Hochul spoke of her dad as a striver while she pitched lawmakers on a housing plan that would ultimately fall flat with the Legislature.

“I think about my own family’s story. My parents started married life in a trailer park,” she said in her address. “On my dad’s salary from the steel plant, they eventually were able to live in a tiny upstairs flat. And from there, they saved up and got a little Cape Cod house.”

Both her parents had volunteered for Housing Opportunities Made Equal, an activist organization.

“They knew how important housing was, and they raised us to fight for change,” she said.

Later on a call with reporters Thursday about her trip, she said his last words to her in a voice memo where, "I’m proud of you, Dolly, but keep your goddamn head down."

"He had a strong sense of responsibility for others," she said. "The one life changing thing my dad did was when we were looking at colleges. He said, 'The other college seems to be a place you learn to be the wife of a congressman. Syracuse is where you learn to be a congressman.' My dad had a big influence on my life."

Hochul is in the middle of a weeklong trip to Israel in the wake of a Hamas attack earlier this month.

Hochul later on Thursday met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a closed-door meeting. She also met at a hotel with four families with ties to the U.S. whose loved ones have been taken hostage.

The governor also made a stop at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Hochul, who is Catholic, made the visit over the objections of her security personnel, a pool report said.

Later, she visited with patients who had been injured in the Hamas attack. She spoke to a 21-year-old soldier who had been shot in the leg while trying to rescue people at a music festival that had come under attack.

“You’re strong and the people who you saved may never know who you are," she said, "but I will know you saved people at their greatest time of desperation."