The Teddy Kollek Award - Jerusalem Foundation

Widely acclaimed as the “great builder” of modern Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek
was born in 1911 in Nagyvazsony, a part of the Hungarian Empire. Most of
Teddy’s youth was spent in Vienna. Though not Orthodox, the family had a
strong Jewish identity, and though not actively Zionist, his parents – who had
named him for Theodor Herzl – did not discourage him from participating in
a youth movement. Teddy began raising funds for Jewish causes at the age of
13, when, in his bar mitzvah speech, he asked the congregation to contribute
money to his youth group for the purchase of a canoe.
Choosing political activism over pursuit of an academic education, he
prepared for life as a pioneer in Israel. Shortly before his departure from
Vienna, he met Tamar Schwarz, who was also active in Zionism. In 1935,
she joined him after his arrival in Palestine. They married two years later, and
were together until Teddy’s death. Almost immediately, Teddy, who became
one of the founding members of Kibbutz Ein Gev, on the eastern shore of
Lake Kinneret, also became involved in a delicate mission for the Jewish
Agency that drew on his courage and innate diplomatic skills.
One of these missions called on him to return to Europe in 1939 to arrange for
permits that would allow 3,000 Jewish Czech youth safe passage to England.
In Vienna, Teddy negotiated the release with Adolf Eichmann. During the
war, working out of Istanbul (by now he headed the Jewish Agency’s political
department), Teddy acted as liaison with Jewish underground groups and
Allied intelligence organizations in Europe which brought him into contact
with David Ben-Gurion. Later, as Ben-Gurion’s aide, Teddy, working out
of New York, oversaw the smuggling of weapons to the Haganah for use in
the War of Independence. He helped arrange for early U.S. aid to the new
state, and was an organizer of the Israel Bonds, an essential and novel source
of funds for Israel’s nascent economy. From 1952 to 1964, Kollek served as
Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, after which he
was elected mayor of Jerusalem in 1965.
Even before Jerusalem’s reunification in June 1967, Teddy undertook two
projects that were to change the city dramatically. He founded the Israel
Museum and established the Jerusalem Foundation.
The Jerusalem Foundation gave lovers of Jerusalem worldwide a vehicle for
becoming involved in the city, at first with improvements to the physical
landscape, but later in education, culture, health care and social services. One
of Teddy’s great innovations was to earmark donors’ gifts to the Foundation
for specific projects. He created a direct and often very profound link between
donors and their families, on the one hand, and specific institutions in
Jerusalem on the other. Giving was perceived as much as a
privilege as it was a burden.
Teddy Kollek was the Mayor of Jerusalem when the
Six-Day War saw Jerusalem reunited. When the new
municipal boundaries were drawn, the city’s area had
tripled in size, and some 70,000 new citizens, Arab
Muslims and Christians, were added to the existing
population of 195,000 Jews.
Teddy Kollek was able to bring to bear all his creativity,
determination, charm, and vision to his new job, and the
people of Jerusalem rewarded him by re-electing him five
times – in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989. Under his
tenure, Jerusalem became a different city.
In the four decades since its establishment, the Jerusalem
Foundation – which Teddy served as Chairman and then
as Honorary Chair until his death – has raised some one
and a half billion dollars and realized more than 4,000
projects. Its work has been carried out in both Jewish
and Arab neighborhoods, among religious and secular
residents, making no distinction between ethnic groups.
Visitors to the city have benefited from some of the most
visible undertakings, but the primary beneficiaries have
been those who live here, whose numbers have risen from
some 265,000 before the Six-Day War to over 800,000
today.
Teddy's achievements took place under near impossible
political conditions. Decisions about the city’s
boundaries were made at the national level, with strategic
considerations that didn’t necessarily relate to the needs
of a growing and underprivileged city. Teddy worked
with a difficult reality and the results he reaped seem
no less fantastic today than they did as they were taking
place.
Teddy Kollek passed away on January 2, 2007. Today,
we honor his memory and his contributions to the
city.
Adapted from an article by David Green.