Our Meeting with the Mayor of Jerusalem
For fifteen years, Mr. Barkat worked in the hi-tech industry. Along with three other partners, he established a hi-tech group that was one of the first to develop antivirus software. He went on to serve as the CEO of Checkpoint Security. Then twelve years ago, he shifted his focus from business to philanthropy, concentrating primarily on education. In his current position he draws a salary of one shekel/year.
Mr. Barkat said he ran for mayor because he realized the challenges ahead for Jerusalem, a city he feels is “not exploiting its potential in the global marketplace.” In the past fifteen years Jews in the medium and high socioeconomic groups have left the city at the rate of about 6,000 people per year. Meanwhile the Arab and illegal populations are growing. The average income of those in East Jerusalem is $4,000/year. In his words, “Jerusalem is the largest and poorest city in the country.”
Mr. Barkat believes the population should be balanced with both Arabs and Jews. Jerusalem, he says, is a microcosm of what is happening in the world, and it has a huge say in how to manage conflict. “We must have freedom of religion,” he told us. The good news? “Never has it been more open for people to practice their religion.” He wants that trend to continue. “We must make coming to Jerusalem a strategic and meaningful event.”
Speaking in flawless English he described Jerusalem’s three circles of “shareholders”—its residents; the people of Israel who look to it as their capital; and those interested in the city as a holy destination. He seeks to benefit all three circles.
How? By increasing tourism. And the best path to more tourists, he believes, is strengthening the experience people have of coming to Jerusalem. That means pushing culture on site and developing related products. “We can create a knock-out experience for people coming to the city,” he said. “Paris, London, and New York City average forty million tourists per year, Jerusalem has only two million. That needs to change.” The municipality has a strong buy-in for increasing tourism and his team seeks a “win-win rather than win-lose strategy,” presumably with the city’s Arab population. Mr. Barkat said his team at City Hall is advancing many bi-partisan efforts, and he strongly believes in a united city.
“Salem” means “whole,” he said. “Whole and holy go together… For every complex problem there’s one simple, wrong answer… Jerusalem must be united rather than split down the middle. It’s like dividing a heart.”
Yet here’s a key challenge: the city has more than 3,000 buildings requiring protection as historical sites. That means the drain of millions of dollars on a poor population with a small tax base. In terms of archaeology, “We find more in one month than people find elsewhere in a year,” he said. “I go once a month to the City of David,” an ancient area just outside the city walls. “I am always amazed at what I find.” Just six months ago it was announced that the Palace of King David had been found. Such finds add to the attraction for tourists, but they also add to the stress on the infrastructure as well as the cost of excavation and protection on-site.
Add to that the 40,000 students who study in Jerusalem. “We have to improve the quality of life,” Barkat said. So hotels are going up. And there’s evidence of a major mass transit system. But to the mayor, the process is like “stepping on blisters.”
Still, he says, “Experience says if you have a great product, people will come. You have to come to Jerusalem at least once in your lifetime.”
During the time opened to our questions, I asked what he wants from the press. His answer? “Tell the truth. Tell of your experience here.” Journalists tend to focus only on conflict—it sells papers and magazines. But the reality is that Jerusalem “is one of the safest cities in the world. Its crime and terror rates are safer than the average city.”
Our team did indeed feel quite safe our entire time there. “We try to make the police invisible,” he said. “We put them where they’re needed and let life flow…” Still, we didn’t go to the West Bank or Gaza Strip. And there are tensions in other places.
I certainly would hate to have his job. The Jewish/Arab conflict is ever-present. “I’m pushing aggressively to improve life in East Jerusalem,” he said, referring to a part of the city with a large Arab population. “I’m committed to serving all residents of the city.”
Of course Mr. Barkat was focused on the city more than on the entire country, so the Palestinian question didn’t come up. The city itself has its own challenges. There are fifteen Christian groups alone registered in Jerusalem, and the task of unifying the various sects of Jews, Muslims and Christians is daunting. Often we can't agree among ourselves, let alone with those of other faiths, nationalities, and backgrounds. Still, Mr. Barkat wants to avoid dividing the city like Berlin. To him that is giving up.
Before our meeting, I had spoken with a grad of my alma mater who lives in Israel. I asked him, "If I could ask the mayor one question that would help Christians here, what would that be?" He expressed concern about government-tolerated persecution against Messianic Jews—people of Jewish descent who convert to Christianity but who continue to embrace their own Jewishness. This alum sent me an article about such persecution. So my question went something like this: "Your press has reported that persecution against Messianic Jews is tolerated...Do you find it difficult to defend the human rights of Jews whose views may be intolerable to many here?"
The mayor said he had no knowledge of such intolerance, but after asking me to repeat the question, he noted it on his pad.
After our time together, we all did something that I’d never seen done at a press conference. We joined hands around the table and prayed for the peace of Jerusalem.