Hackney’s Green mayor, Zoë Garbett, has finally carried out her main campaign promise, as Hackney Council voted to end its 58-year twinning relationship with Haifa, a northern Israeli city well known for its diverse population, which has managed to sustain a brave reality of coexistence.
As her campaign created rifts within Hackney Council and shook the local Jewish community, which remains one of Britain’s largest Jewish communities, Garbett could perhaps draw some useful lessons about leadership, commitment to residents and anti-racist values from Haifa’s first Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy.
Levy, who had served as deputy to Haifa’s renowned mayor, Hassan Bey Shukri, was appointed mayor after Shukri’s death in 1940. As committed as he was to Haifa’s Jewish community, Levy also cultivated close relations with its Muslim and Christian Arab residents. Praised for his dedication to coexistence, Levy was nicknamed Abuna – “our father” in Arabic – by local Arab residents.
Yet this did not come without difficulties. Arab nationalist opponents did not accept that personal respect for Levy legitimised Jewish control of the mayoralty. Taher Karman, Levy’s Muslim Arab deputy, worked under him, spoke warmly of him personally and cooperated with him in running Haifa. Yet he consistently opposed Jewish possession of the mayoralty and campaigned for Levy to be replaced by a Muslim Arab mayor.
Levy also received death threats and survived an apparent assassination attempt in 1946, largely thanks to the Christian Arab deputy mayor, Shehadeh Shelah. Shelah learned from Muslim acquaintances that a gunman intended to shoot Levy as he stepped off his usual bus and warned him in time.
And yet Levy continued to believe in coexistence. His belief was ultimately tested at the moment of Jewish victory, during the dramatic and fateful days of the civil-war phase of 1948, in the dramatic weeks preceding Israel’s declaration of independence.
Although the leaders of the Arab states that would attack the Jews intended to direct most of their armies towards Haifa, those plans did not materialise. By late April 1948, it had become clear that the Jewish forces of the Haganah had won control of the city. The Arab front, in which many of the fighters were non-local from places such as Syria and Iraq, was collapsing, while many of the city’s Arab leaders had fled, leaving their communities without effective leadership.
Levy’s sincere attempts to preserve coexistence in the city during the war are well documented in official records and on-the-ground reports from Hebrew and international outlets.
On April 22,1948, at a British-mediated meeting in Haifa City Hall over the surrender of Arab Haifa, the Arab delegation rejected the proposed terms, which required disarmament but promised Haifa’s Arab residents a future as equal and free citizens. The remaining representatives of Haifa’s Arab community said they could not sign because it did not control the remaining Arab military elements, and chose evacuation, also amid expectations that Arab forces might later retake the city. There were also warnings that those who remained under Jewish rule would be branded traitors for accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Levy burst into tears.
“You have always turned to me as the mayor and called me Abuna – our father. Today I feel I must be a father to you. You do not know what you are doing. If you leave the city, you will become refugees. Your wives will suffer. Your children will suffer. Do not take this step. Stay in the city and be equal citizens.”
According to accounts of the meeting, Major-General Hugh Stockwell, the British commander who chaired the negotiations, went pale, shocked by the Arab delegation’s decision, and joined Levy’s pleas.
“You have made a foolish decision. Think it over, as you’ll regret it afterward. You must accept the conditions of the Jews. They are fair enough. Don’t permit life to be destroyed senselessly. After all, it was you who began the fighting, and the Jews have won,” he said.
Levy did not give up. To ensure that his message reached Haifa’s wider Arab population, the Haganah and the municipality immediately turned to the media. The Haganah radio station broadcast proclamations in Arabic and English, citing Levy and promising that Arabs who laid down their arms would be guaranteed complete safety, protection of their property and full civil rights. Loudspeaker vans drove around the city to reach those without radios.
Jewish labour unions, led by Workers’ Council head Abba Hushi, who later also became mayor of Haifa, issued urgent flyers promising Arab workers the security of their jobs and salaries. Hebrew daily newspapers reported extensively on “the tragedy” of Haifa’s evacuation.
Eventually, the vast majority of Haifa’s Arab population – around 60,000 residents – left the city, despite pleas from the British, the mayor and many in the Jewish community. A few eventually returned, while those who stayed became an integral part of modern Haifa.
CST data from recent years show that Hackney has become a hotspot for antisemitic incidents in London. Levy earned the name Abuna because, even amid bitter communal conflict, he understood the mayoralty as a responsibility to all the city’s residents. It is a demanding model of civic leadership – and one worth remembering in Hackney’s mayor office today.
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