cover image Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem

Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem

Naomi Shepherd. HarperCollins Publishers, $16.45 (175pp) ISBN 978-0-06-039084-6

The author of A Refuge from Darkness, who lives in Jerusalem, ably limns the Israeli capital's volatile political and religious climate, but this is more a lucid overview of Jewish ultra-Orthodox and Arab discontent than a biography of the maverick Kollek, the ""referee of the barely dormant conflicts in the city.'' Although some successes and failures of his more than two-decade tenure as mayor of Jerusalem are paraded (of the former, are the intensive restoration of the Old City and securing the right of the Arabs to educate their children according to Jordanian curriculum; of the latter, are failed plans for both a soccer field, quashed by ultra-Orthodox opposition, and a compensation package, eventually blocked by various Israeli government ministries, for Arabs who abandoned West Jerusalem property in 1948). Shepherd reveals little that is not a matter of public record. Kollek's private life remains a mystery, and the author notes that the details of his work as a pioneer of Israel's relations with the CIA ``have never been told.'' Nor do readers learn them here. Photos not seen by PW. (April)