Shlomo Lahat, Ex-Mayor of Tel Aviv, Dies at 86

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/world/middleeast/shlomo-lahat-ex-mayor-of-tel-aviv-dies-at-86.html

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Shlomo Lahat, who as mayor of Tel Aviv for almost two decades presided over the city’s transformation into a vibrant and open urban center, died there on Wednesday. He was 86.

The cause was a lung infection, Israeli newspapers said. Mr. Lahat had been treated for Alzheimer’s disease for several years, his son Dan told Israel’s Channel 10.

Mr. Lahat is widely credited with inventing the slogan “the city that never stops” to describe Tel Aviv, a 105-year-old community distinguished by Bauhaus architecture and a laid-back Mediterranean-style culture.

Under his leadership, Tel Aviv took on a cosmopolitan aura, which helps differentiate it from the much more restrained and religiously oriented Jerusalem.

Born in Berlin on Nov. 9, 1927, Mr. Lahat rose to the rank of major general in the Israeli Army and went into politics in 1973. He was elected Tel Aviv mayor the following year and remained in office until 1993.

Mr. Lahat was formally affiliated with the conservative Likud party, but he became a strong supporter of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the main force behind Israeli peace efforts with Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. Mr. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in Tel Aviv in 1995 at a peace rally that Mr. Lahat had helped organize.

Besides his son Dan, survivors include his wife, Ziva; another child; and several grandchildren.