POLITICS : ‘Mr. Jerusalem’ Finds Bowing Out Is Hard to Do

“Mr. Jerusalem” for more than a quarter of a century, Mayor Teddy Kollek is now proving to be “Mr. Indispensable.”

Kollek, who will be 82 in May, had expected to slip into retirement at the end of last year, advising his successor on how to manage his treasured city but slowing his pace after 60 years of helping to build modern Israel.

“It will be a quick fade-out--I will be around, but I won’t be filling the center of the picture,” Kollek said late last year, suggesting that he would step aside for a successor before completing his present term. “When things are in place, I won’t linger. I have resolved to leave.”

Trouble was that, after 27 years as mayor, Kollek had no successor for a job he calls Israel’s most difficult. “Mayor of Jerusalem is not the most important job,” Kollek said a few months ago, “but it is harder than being prime minister.”

Kollek’s candidate, Deputy Mayor Amos Mar-Haim, was so lackluster a politician that the governing Labor Party feared he would lose the Jerusalem City Hall to the opposition Likud Party at the first election; Labor’s leadership objected to his appointment to fill out the balance of Kollek’s term.

But Kollek did not like the other Labor candidates, regarding them as not sharing his vision of a united but multicultural Jerusalem, uncommitted to making Jerusalem their career and no better as vote-getters than Mar-Haim, a former business executive.

Kollek, gruff, autocratic but absolutely devoted to his city, also deeply resented efforts by Labor Party officials to tell him how to organize his succession. Only a personal plea by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin persuaded Kollek not to quit at the end of 1992.

Then, in a move that startled local politicians, the mayor suggested last month he might well seek another term, his seventh (some terms have been longer than four years), in November municipal elections. He explained he still had projects to see through and would decide only this summer whether to run.

“It’s not Teddy’s fault they don’t have a good candidate for mayor of Jerusalem--everyone in Labor who’s able and younger than Rabin is aiming for that job,” a Kollek confidant retired from politics said. “And Teddy cast too large a shadow to foster a true successor. . . .

“But the other problem is that Jerusalem really is much more a Likud city than a Labor city, more religious than secular, more Sephardic than Ashkenazic. Teddy could win if he ran again, but for any other Labor candidate, it would be very hard.”

Labor’s best bet appears to be Nachman Shai, who as military spokesman during the 1991 Persian Gulf War kept the nation calm; opinion polls show Shai electable, although marginally so.

In Likud, the post is likely to be sought by one or two of the candidates, perhaps Zeev (Benny) Begin and Moshe Katzav, who fail in the contest for the party leadership next month; it has also attracted bids from present and former Likud members of Parliament, including former Health Minister Ehud Olmert.

More is at stake, however, than the question of which party controls City Hall, for the future of Jerusalem is a key issue in Israeli-Arab peace negotiations.

Will it remain united? Will it serve, somehow, as the capital of Israel and the seat of the proposed “Palestinian Interim Self-Governing Authority”? Can the peace be kept here if violence increases in the occupied West Bank that nearly envelops this city?

“Kollek has a vision of a united and tolerant Jerusalem that is crucial to the Israeli negotiating position,” a senior Western diplomat here commented.

Kollek will no longer discuss his tenure as mayor, refusing interviews on the subject. He is too busy pushing his projects to completion to worry now about another term, he says.

Recent Arab-Jewish violence in the city has Kollek deeply worried, as does the growing confrontation between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews.

“Jerusalem without Teddy is frightening,” said Moshe Bar-Am, 45, a taxi driver who normally votes Likud but remains a stalwart Kollek fan. “Teddy keeps the peace in Jerusalem. When things blow up, he shouts a little, and then soothes a lot. He’s on the streets, he’s in the neighborhoods, he’s with the people, always with the people.”

Profile: Teddy Kollek

Position: Mayor of Jerusalem

Birthplace: Vienna

Age: 81

Term as mayor: 27 years

Background: Moved to Israel in 1935; entered government work after Israeli independence; diplomat in U.S. in 1950s; first elected mayor in 1965.