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Haifa’s Mayor invites Mayor of Hackney to visit ‘to look for herself’
Haifa's Mayor: 'When a city that has devoted decades to building a shared society is portrayed as a symbol of racism or intolerance, it is the truth that suffers'
The Mayor of Haifa has responded to efforts by Green-party controlled Hackney council to cancel its twinning agreement with the Israeli city by inviting the Green Mayor of the London borough “to visit Haifa and to look for herself.”
Writing in The Times on Thursday, Yona Yahav, said that “the world does not need more cities severing ties with one another. It needs more cities that choose, every day, to bring people together.”
Last month Hackney Council, which has been under Green control since the local elections in May, voted to sever its twinning agreement with Israel. In a subsequent letter to Yahav, the elected Mayor of Hackney, Green party politician Zoe Garbett, wrote that “maintaining a civic connection in Israel is at odds with our anti-racist values.”
In his response in The Times, Yahav, who served as an MK for the Labor party in the 1990s, wrote that “governments can be criticised. Policies can be challenged. That is how democracies function. But when a city that has devoted decades to building a shared society is portrayed as a symbol of racism or intolerance, it is the truth that suffers.
“Cities should be bridges, not walls. Haifa proves every day that bridges are stronger.”
Haifa is well known as one of Israel’s most multicultural cities, where Jews and Arabs live side by side. Yahav described how “for more than a century, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bahá’ís have lived alongside one another here, not as an abstract ideal but as a way of life.
“They study in the same schools and universities. They care for one another in our hospitals, work side by side, establish businesses together, meet in the same cafés and restaurants, and co-operate in local government and community life. This is the everyday reality of my city.”
Garbett had originally written to Yahav that she was looking for a response from him by 7 October. After widespread fury at the choice of date, she wrote a further letter to Yahav apologising for what she called “a deeply regretful oversight”, extending the deadline for a response to 14 October.
Yahav did not mention the original choice of date in his Times article, but wrote that “the role of a mayor is not to conduct global politics. My responsibility is to ensure that every child in my city, whatever their religion or community, can study in safety; that every family receives the services they deserve; and that every person feels they belong.
“My message to the British public, and particularly to the residents of Hackney, is therefore a simple one. Do not judge Haifa through headlines, slogans or political resolutions. Come and visit us. Meet our residents. Walk through our neighbourhoods, hospitals, universities, markets and holy places. Speak to those of all faiths who share this city and call it home.
“I believe that one visit to Haifa can teach more than a thousand arguments. And so I invite Zoë Garbett, the newly elected mayor of Hackney, to visit Haifa and to look for herself, and not through screens and social media posts.
“The world does not need more cities severing ties with one another. It needs more cities that choose, every day, to bring people together. This is not a utopia. This is Haifa.”
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