Jerusalem Foundation President Ruth Cheshin reminisces about her mentor's cultivation of the Holy City he commanded for more than a quarter of a century

Ruth Cheshin, right, with Tamar Kollek former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek's funeral earlier this year.
Photo: Courtesy photo

'He never thought of himself as someone with a monopoly on wisdom," Ruth Cheshin says of the late Teddy Kollek, the man who set the wheels of her career in motion 40 years ago. "And he was always willing and eager to learn something new."

Cheshin has headed the Jerusalem Foundation since the end of the Six Day War in 1967. It was then that her boss at City Hall decided to invest energy in raising private funds for public projects necessary to turning the now reunified Jerusalem into a modern, tourism-friendly place.

Since then, the foundation's projects have included anything and everything from the renovation of neighborhoods to the development of cultural institutions to the building of playgrounds to the restoration of historical sites and the preservation of religious ones. And, as the name "Teddy" became synonymous with the country's capital, the name "Ruth Cheshin" became synonymous with the Jerusalem Foundation.

A seventh-generation Jerusalemite, Cheshin (the wife of Supreme Court Justice Mishael, mother-of-three and grandmother-of-five) is also chairperson of the board of Mishkenot Sha'ananim, director of Teva Pharmaceuticals, and a member of the boards of the Israel Festival, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Tower of David Museum, the Khan Theater, the Sam Spiegel School of Film and Television, the Jerusalem Music Center and the Jerusalem Theater.

In this hour-long interview, Cheshin talks candidly and lovingly about the mayor with whom the whole world was on a first-name basis throughout the 28 years of his tenure (from 1965-1993) and afterwards. He was often abrasive, Cheshin says, yet he was always "able to accept criticism."

When you think of Teddy, what's the first word that comes to your mind?
Human. Compassionate. It was hidden behind a lot of abrasiveness, of course, but it was there. The personal life stories of "ordinary people" always moved him. And he saw everyone as equals, whether they were kids from poor neighborhoods in Jerusalem or the billionaires from the United States. He also treated everybody the same way. He was equally capable of screaming or smiling at people, no matter who they were. It's highly unusual these days, when most people with standing take themselves very seriously - with a sense of self-importance. Teddy wasn't like that. That was one of the most wonderful things about him.

Do you remember the first time you met him?
Yes, and in fact, it was surrounding precisely one of those "human" stories I mentioned. It was in 1965. I was a tour guide. The Tourism Ministry - which used to hire me to guide some of its guests - offered me a job handling important visitors arriving for the opening of the Israel Museum. One of these VIPs was a well-known artist, who was quite old with a very young wife. On the second day after their arrival, he died suddenly. His wife was at a complete loss, literally and figuratively. She didn't know what to do. She was in a foreign country, where she didn't speak the language. She'd accompanied her husband, and suddenly he was gone. She was all alone in the world. It was awful.

Teddy didn't know me, but he came to me and gave me the following order: "Your job is to take care of that woman from morning till night. Make her feel at home."

And so I did - for every minute of every day, until she was on the airplane back home. The museum handled all the technicalities of the coffin and the body, etc. But I took care of the woman.

The very fact that this is what Teddy had on his mind during the opening of the museum he was so concerned with and excited about was a fantastic human gesture.

Even though he "ordered" you to take care of her...
Yes, that was his style - the way he made requests.

And that was the beginning of your decades-long acquaintance?
Yes, but do you really think that after that he even remembered me at all? [She laughs.] Not a chance. Though I, of course, remembered him.

A few months later, I volunteered for his election campaign - he was elected mayor in December 1965. But I still didn't really meet him then.

When he was elected, the person I worked for as a volunteer during the campaign offered me a job. He told me that Teddy, who considered tourism very important, had hired him to manage the tourism department of the municipality. He asked me to be his assistant and I agreed.

During that period, nobody ever visited Jerusalem. You know, there was a famous story of a British soldier visiting Jerusalem in '65 who, after walking around the streets of the city past 8 p.m., asked his friends whether the curfew was still in effect. [She laughs again.]

What attracted Teddy to the whole issue of tourism?
He thought that more people should be encouraged to come here. More tourists mean more money, more movement. We all know that. Look what went on in Jerusalem during the intifada. Tourists stopped coming, and restaurants closed, shops shut down and hotels were virtually empty. The city was dead.

Teddy always understood this. The average [pre-'67] tourist would come to Jerusalem in the morning and return to Tel Aviv, or elsewhere, in the evening. Our goal was to cause the tourists to spend at least one night in Jerusalem. So we had to create attractions. That was the idea behind the tourism department of the Jerusalem Municipality.

Then came the the Six Day War, which unified the city. Suddenly, Jerusalem became an international attraction - the most famous city in the world.

How did that make Teddy feel?
It made him feel great. He was like a fish in water. He really was the right man in the right place at the right time.

Anyway, it was during the Six Day War that I got to know Teddy. Most of the staff of City Hall was drafted. I was in my seventh month of pregnancy with my second son at the time - he's now 39 - and I was practically the only person in the building, which is why I ended up working with him more directly. So, when the war ended, he said to me, "Listen, Ruthie, tourists are now coming to the city, so we don't need a tourism department. I think what we need to do now is develop the Jerusalem Foundation."