Long-serving Jerusalem mayor Kollek dies at 95

Reuters ^ | 1/2/07 | Jeffrey Heller

[Valin]

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Former Jerusalem mayor Theodor "Teddy" Kollek, a tireless preacher of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence in a holy city of deep religious and nationalist divisions, died on Tuesday aged 95. "Teddy was Jerusalem and Jerusalem was Teddy," the current mayor, Uri Lupolianski, said after his office reported the death of one of Israel's most famous political figures.

Kollek became mayor of Jewish West Jerusalem in 1965, two years before Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in a Middle East war. He was re-elected five times, serving 28 years, before losing in 1993 to Ehud Olmert, now Israel's prime minister. "Kollek's name and the glory of Jerusalem will forever remain inseparable," Olmert said in a statement mourning his former political opponent, who will be buried on Thursday. Kollek, born in Nagyvazsony, a small town on the Danube, and raised in Vienna, launched more ambitious building and restoration projects in Jerusalem than any city father since 16th century Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who built the Old City walls.

Instantly recognizable in his suit and open-necked shirt, Kollek would set out on morning "inspection" walks through Jerusalem's diverse neighborhoods. He publicly listed his home telephone number, saying the mayor should be available to all. "We proved that Jerusalem is a better city united than divided," Kollek once said in an interview.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after the 1967 war in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and have largely boycotted Israeli mayoral elections in the city. "(Kollek) was a respectable Israeli figure," said Khatem Abdel-Qader, a prominent Palestinian resident of Jerusalem and a leader in President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. "But while it's true Kollek sought coexistence ... he did not believe for a single moment that Palestinians in the city have political rights -- only social rights," Abdel-Qader said.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Through decades of conflict, Kollek advocated religious freedom for all faiths in Jerusalem, while insisting the city Israel regards as its "eternal and indivisible capital" remain under the overall control of the Jewish state. But, in an article in 1988 in the journal Foreign Affairs, he said: "There is ... room for functional division of authority (in Jerusalem), for internal autonomy of each community and for functional sovereignty."

Kollek immigrated to British-run Palestine at the age of 24 to found a kibbutz, or communal farm, in the Galilee. Representing Jewish interests in Europe at the outbreak of World War Two, Kollek met Adolf Eichmann, a senior Nazi official later executed after trial in Israel, and arranged for the transfer of 3,000 young European Jews to Britain. He later served as a representative in the United States of the Hagana, the main Jewish paramilitary force before Israel was established in 1948, organizing ammunition shipments back home. Before becoming mayor, Kollek ran the office of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father, for 12 years.

Within days of the end of the 1967 war, Kollek ordered the stone wall that had divided Jerusalem to be torn down, and worked energetically to win the respect, if not always the affection, of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem. Kollek married Tamar Schwartz in 1937. They have a son, Amos, a film-maker, and a daughter, Osnat, an artist.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)

[fieldmarshaldj]

Rest in peace. Prayers for his family.

[avital2]

a great man who did much for peace. z"l

[Ancesthntr]

Rest in peace, Teddy. I hope that Kollek's family can be comforted by the fact that he lived a long and full life, and that he helped many people and the cause of peace during that life.

Too bad he lost to Foolmert - it would've been nice to stop that appeaser's political career in its tracks, but Teddy was already 82 and Jerusalemites were clearly ready for new blood.