Jerusalem (special) -- Jeff Elden, who builds custom homes in San Diego County, was struck by the harmony and serenity of the design of Jerusalem’s new city hall.  Inside the building, 90 San Diegans participating in the Shalom ‘98 Mission to Israel felt other emotions Wednesday, Nov. 4, as Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert in turn was charming and peevish during their meeting with him. 

The get-together with Olmert was held in the City Council chambers, in which the desks for 31 council members and 14 advisers and special guests form a perfect circle, symbolic of the “circle of justice,” according to Olmert’s special assistant, Zvi Raviv.  A dome above the council chamber represents the sky over Jerusalem. 

As mayor, Olmert has at his place one small device accorded to no one else at the round table: a red button which can cut off the microphone of any of the other speakers.  “That’s more or less politics, isn’t it?” quipped Raviv, as the delegation representing the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County waited for the mayor to make his appearance.  As the meeting was held less than a week before muncipal election day (in which Olmert easily would win a second 5-year term), the San Diegans were appreciative that the mayor, who frequently is mentioned as a possible future candidate for prime minister of Israel, had made time to meet with them.

Mayor Ehud Olmert

On arrival, Olmert alluded to the upcoming election, quipping that in California the day before, voters had taken control of the governor’s office from the Republican party and given it to the Democrats, and that he, as a Likud mayor, was having meetings with voters to assure that  there was no similar result in his city.

Up until this election, Olmert served simultaneously as mayor and as a member of Israel’s Knesset, but under a new law, mayors no longer are eligible to serve in the national parliament.  Olmert said he had no difficulty choosing which position he preferred. 

“Jerusalem is like no other place in the universe,” he said.  “There are bigger cities, definitely richer cities, more ancient cities, but there is not one like it; there never was, and I don’t believe there ever will be a city like Jerusalem.” 

Noting that Jews around the world utter the prayer “next year in Jerusalem” at their Passover seder tables, Olmert charmed the delegates by posing to himself the question: what does the phrase “next year in Jerusalem” mean to him as one who obviously already is in Jerusalem? 

“The answer, of course, is that you cannot just interpret this in just a narrow technical context,” he said.  “‘Next year in Jerusalem’ is a promise; it is a fundamental commitment of Jewish continuity...When we say now, ‘next year in Jerusalem’ we are reaffirming a fundamental commitment of the Jewish people.” 

He added: “To be mayor in this context is like no other job that a Jew is privileged to hold.” 

That brought him to the question of Jerusalem’s future, now that final status negotiations are looming in the wake of the Wye Plantation Agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. 

“Everything that they have been working on until now was just preparation for the ultimate encounter on this most important issue,” he said.  “And I have no doubt in my mind that in a short while we will occupy the headlines of all the universe because the Palestinian leadership is anxious to establish a Palestinian state within the city of Jerusalem... 

“What they really mean is that they want a split city...and to keep at least part of it, if not all of it, as the capital of their Palestinian state,” Olmert said.  “(P.A. President Yasser) Arafat doesn’t deny these intentions...so we will have to face this. 

“I don’t know how this negotiation will be conducted, but I think I know how it will end, and that is precisely the same way as it starts: Jerusalem is going to remain as one united, undivided capital of the State of Israel.” 

* * * 

A question and answer session revealed another side of Olmert’s personality.  When San Diegan Irving Schiffman, who recently had received some literature from the Jerusalem Foundation, asked about the nature of the relationship between the Foundation and the City of Jerusalem, Olmert turned peevish. 

“I wish I knew,” the mayor said.  “Unfortunately, as it turned out five years ago, when I was elected mayor and I thought as mayor of Jerusalem I would also have real influence over the Foundation...(but I found out) it is operated by the people who are members of the association. 

“And for some inexcusable reasons, or perhaps for reasons that they  need to explain, they didn’t like the idea that as the top authority in the city that I would have a say in the Foundation whose soul mission is to help the city,” Olmert added. 

“So since then, the Foundation is one thing; the city is another thing.  And the Foundation is losing followers because unfortunately it doesn’t think it appropriate to have the mayor to have (any say about) their work.  Since no one can build or do anything in the city without the mayor, it is becoming a problem for the Foundation.” 

Olmert’s reply--especially with what sounded like a veiled threat against the Foundation--caught many in the delegation by surprise.  The Jerusalem Foundation is one of the more popular Israeli charities in San Diego County.  With Helena Galper serving as the San Diego area director, a  San Diego New Leadership group of the Jerusalem Foundation has financed at Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo special houses where children can meet baby animals face to face.  An even more ambitious zoo project, also financed by San Diego contributors, is the creation of a miniature Wild Animal Park, patterned after San Diego’s. 

Such a strong relationship has developed between the Jerusalem Foundation and the San Diego Zoo that a continual stream of top employees from the Jerusalem Zoo come to San Diego for professional training and consultation.  Even now, the biblical zoo’s top veterinarian, Gabi Eshkar, is in San Diego. 

Another project has been the acquisition of sculptures by French artist Nicki de Saint Phalle of animals that might have been aboard the biblical Noah’s Ark.  The sculptures, designed for children to climb upon, have been displayed at Balboa Park under the auspices of the Mingei Museum, and are destined for a Noah’s Ark playground in Jerusalem. 

The Jerusalem Foundation was begun in 1966 by Olmert’s long-time predecessor as mayor, Teddy Kollek.  A spokesman for the Foundation, Amnon Be’eri, told HERITAGE that upon Olmert’s election five years ago the Jersualem Foundation “offered the mayor several positions in the organization.  He rejected them all.  Moreover, the JF’s international board which assembled in London decided and offered him, with Teddy Kollek’s approval, Kollek’s position which was at the time the JF’s Chairman.  The mayor rejected this offer as well.” 

Be’eri said since its founding, the Jerusalem Foundation has helped to finance 2,000 projects in Jerusalem, making a “significant impact on every facet of life in Jerusalem.  With the firm support of its growing number of friends all over the world, the JF has both the means and ability to continue to do so in the future.” 

The spokesman said the Foundation has enjoyed cooperation with a variety of bodies in Jerusalem, including the municipal government.  “However,” he added, “the JF was born as a separate entity.  It is not and never was a part nor an extension of the municipality.” 

Currently, he added, the Foundation is developing $60 million worth of projects, while sponsoring 150 activities and programs in the city.  In the five years since Olmert took office, the Jerusalem Foundation collected approximately $152 million to improve Jerusalem, with the 1998 figure expected to be between $33 and $35 million.  This year’s total represents an increase of 30 percent over last year, the spokesman said. 

“We believe that those facts are a clear evidence that the Jerusalem Foundation is going from strength to strength,” Be’eri said. 

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which counts Olmert as an alumnus, had tentatively scheduled a visit by the Jerusalem mayor to San Diego on Dec. 3.  But, according to Scott Nebenzahl, the San Diego director of American Friends of the Hebrew University, the local appearance had to be cancelled because of scheduling conflicts in other West Coast cities. 

* * * 

On the grounds of Jerusalem’s city hall complex is a water structure, bringing to mind the ancient Roman aquaducts which still are features of the Israeli landscape.  Other striking features outside the massive building are an oasis of palm trees and a lush garden. 

Elden, a principal in Design/Build Partners, which constructs custom homes in San Diego County, suggested that “maybe what was in the architect’s mind was that you need a structure of government to provide an infrastructure to get the living, green elements of what makes life pleasant.”  He was pleased as well by the “very simple construction elements” used in the government complex: stone, stainless steel, and wood -- “and the wood, I suppose you could get an interpretation, is a result of the water, and government’s ability to

Jerusalem City Hall

provide water,” Elden said.  “So the water from the outside translates to wood in the inside.” The San Diego builder noted that the City Hall complex is “very rectalinear, very simple, with deceptively simple architectural forms, but they are repeated in the metal grillwork on the outside, and the elements are used over and over again in different colors, different woods, and different treatments and the repetition begins to be very dramatic.” 

He also was impressed that although City Hall is a very large building, ceilings have been brought down and “they have made it very warm and hospitable and comfortable.” 

If political quarreling as typified by Olmert’s anger with the Jerusalem Foundation seems to contradict the mood of the building (which the Safron Family donated to the city through the Jerusalem Foundation) one needs only to look a short distance away at the old City Hall to regain a sense of progress and serenity. 

That circular building, diagonally across a wide boulevard from the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, still bears bullet holes from the era between 1948 and 1967 when the Old City was under Jordanian control and snipers fired back and forth across the intersection which was blocked by fortifications and barbed wire.