Teddy Kollek
| Teddy Kollek | |
|---|---|
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| Native name | טדי קולק |
| Born |
Kollek Tivadar May 27, 1911 Nagyvázsony, Hungary |
| Died | January 2, 2007 (aged 95) |
| Known for | Mayor of Jerusalem |
| Predecessor | Mordechai Ish-Shalom |
| Successor | Ehud Olmert |
| Political party | Labour Party |
| Spouse(s) | Tamar (1917–2013) |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards |
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Theodor "Teddy" Kollek (Hebrew: טדי קולק; May 27, 1911 – January 2, 2007) was an Israeli politician who served as the mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989. After reluctantly running for a seventh term in 1993 at the age of 82, he lost to Likud candidate and future Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert.
During his tenure, Jerusalem developed into a modern city, especially after its reunification in 1967. He was once called "the greatest builder of Jerusalem since Herod."
Theodore (Teddy) Kollek was born in Nagyvázsony, 120 km from Budapest, Hungary as Kollek Tivadar. His parents named him after Theodor Herzl. The family moved to Vienna in 1918. Growing up in the Austrian capital city, Kollek came to share his father Alfréd's Zionist convictions.
In 1935, three years before the Nazis seized power in Austria, the Kollek family immigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine. In 1937, he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev, on the shore of Lake Kinneret. That same year he married Tamar Schwarz. They had two children, a son, the film director Amos Kollek (born in 1947), and a daughter, Osnat.
In the 1940s, on behalf of the Jewish Agency (Sochnut) and as part of the "The Hunting Season" or "Saison" Teddy Kollek was the Jewish Agency's contact person with the British Mandate MI5, providing information against right-wing Jewish underground groups Irgun and Lehi (known as "Stern Gang"). He succeeded Reuven Zaslani and preceded Zeev Sherf in this function, and was carrying out the Jewish Agency's policy of assisting the British in fighting these groups. In 1942 Kolleck was appointed the Jewish Agency's deputy head of intelligence. Between January 1945 and May 1946 he was the Agency's chief external liaison officer in Jerusalem and was in contact with MI5's main representative as well as members of British Military Intelligence. On 10 August 1945 he revealed to MI5 the location of a secret Irgun training camp near Binyamina. Twenty-seven Irgun members were arrested in the raid that followed.
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