Teddy Kollek: Difference between revisions

Theodor "Teddy" Kollek (Hebrew: טדי קולק) (May 27, 1911 – January 2 2007) was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, as well as founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. He was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983, and 1989. In a reluctant seventh bid for mayor in 1993, Kollek, aged 82, lost to Likud candidate Ehud Olmert. During his tenure Jerusalem developed into a modern city, especially after its reunification in 1967^[1]. He was once called “the greatest builder of Jerusalem since Herod.”^[2]

Kollek was born in Nagyvázsony, 120 km from Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and was named after Theodor Herzl. Growing up in Vienna, Kollek came to share his father Alfréd’s Zionist convictions.

In 1935, three years before the Nazis seized power in Austria, the Kollek family emigrated to Palestine, then under British mandate. Kollek was eager to help build a new society and, in 1937, he was one of the co-founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev, near Lake Galilee.^[1] That same year he married Tamar Schwarz. They had two children, son Amos (born 1947) and daughter Osnat. His half brother, Ervin, and his father-in-law, Murrey, are currently living in Montgomery, Alabama, with Kollek's aid de camp Harry Shurfield.

During World War II, Kollek tried to represent Jewish interests in Europe on behalf of the Jewish Agency. At the outbreak of the war he succeeded in persuading Adolf Eichmann (then a minor Nazi official) to release 3,000 young Jewish concentration camp inmates and transfer them to England. In 1947—48, he represented the Haganah in Washington, where he assisted in acquiring ammunition for Israel’s then-fledgling army. Kollek became a close ally of David Ben-Gurion, working in the latter’s government from 1952 until 1965.^[3]

In 1965 Teddy Kollek succeeded Mordechai Ish-Shalom as Mayor of Jerusalem. On his motivations for seeking the mayor’s office in Jerusalem, Kollek once recalled:^[4]

I got into this by accident[…] I was bored. When the city was united, I saw this as an historic occasion. To take care of it and show better care than anyone else ever has is a full life purpose. I think Jerusalem is the one essential element in Jewish history. A body can live without an arm or a leg, not without the heart. This is the heart and soul of it.

Kollek was a mayor and a father as well for the Jews and the Arabs, with whom he maintained good connections. During his tenure Jerusalem developed into a modern city, especially after its reunification in 1967^[1]; he was once called “the greatest builder of Jerusalem since Herod.”^[5]

Despite being an outspoken liberal of Ashkenazi origins in a predominantly Sephardi city with one of the most right-wing constituencies in Israel, Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983, and 1989, serving 28 years as mayor of Jerusalem.^[6] In a reluctant seventh bid for mayor in 1993, Kollek, aged 82, lost to Likud candidate Ehud Olmert.

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After the Six-Day War of 1967, East Jerusalem, which had previously been under Jordanian control, fell under Israeli administration. As mayor of a newly united Jerusalem, Kollek’s approach toward her Arab inhabitants was above all governed by pragmatism. “I’d love the city to be empty of Arabs, but since they are here we need to serve them, because if we treat them badly they will hate us more,”^[4] he was once quoted as saying. For Kollek this was not merely rhetoric; within hours of the transfer of authority, he arranged for the provision of milk for Arab children. His even-handedness went so far as to cause some Israelis to consider him pro-Arab.^[4]

Kollek advocated religious tolerance and made numerous efforts to reach out to the Arab community during his tenure. Muslims continued to have access to al-Aqsa Mosque and al-Haram ash-Sharif (the Temple Mount) for worship, and on occasion Kollek would even criticize overzealous Jews for establishing new settlements in contentious parts of the city. On one occasion, he protested outside the office of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for this reason.

Kollek’s views toward the annexation of East Jerusalem softened after leaving office, with himself conceding that self-rule for the Palestinian community in East Jerusalem should take place.^[7] The status of East Jerusalem has remained controversial up to the present.

After leaving office, Kollek dedicated himself to several civic causes, most notably toward the development and expansion of the Israel Museum (a project to which he had been devoted since even before his mayoral career) and the Jerusalem Theater, and as founder and head of the Jerusalem Foundation. Through a leadership which spanned decades, Kollek raised millions of dollars from private donors for civic development projects and cultural programs; Kollek once remarked that, if on the one hand Israel needed expansion and a strong military, “it also needs expressions of culture and civilization.”^[4]

Kollek continued to be active in retirement, maintaining a five-day work week into his nineties, even as he became increasingly infirm.^[8] Kollek died on January 2, 2007. He is buried on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.

• List of mayors of Jerusalem