Shlomo Lahat

Shlomo "Chich" Lahat (Hebrew: שלמה להט‎; November 9, 1927 – October 1, 2014) was a Major General in the Israel Defense Forces and former Head of the Manpower Directorate. He served as the eighth mayor of Tel Aviv in 1974–1993, for four consecutive terms. After election on the Likud ticket in 1974, he was re-elected in 1978, 1983 and 1989. He coined the slogan about Tel Aviv being "the city that never stops." [1]

Shlomo Lahat
Native name
שלמה להט
Birth nameSalo Lindner
Nickname(s)Cheech
Born(1927-11-09)November 9, 1927
Berlin, Germany
DiedOctober 1, 2014(2014-10-01) (aged 86)
Tel Aviv, Israel
Allegiance Israel
Service/branch
Years of service1944-1973
Rank Aluf
Commands held
Wars
Other workMayor of Tel Aviv, 1974-1993
Shlomo Lahat (R), shows foreign visitors the impact of an Iraqi missile in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War, 1991

Biography

Shlomo Lindner (later Lahat) was born in Germany. He immigrated to Mandatory Palestine with his family in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. The family settled in Rehovot. Lahat's nickname “Cheech” dates back to when he played tug-of-war with this friends at the age of eight. “I would yell ‘zieh’ – ‘Pull’ [in Germa]n – to my friends, and they made it into ‘Cheech,’ and it stuck with me to this day," he later recalled. Lahat was a member of Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and attended Gymnasia Herzliya high school in Tel Aviv.[2]

Lahat was married to Ziva, former director of the Humanities Library at Tel Aviv University. They had two children, Dan and Avner. His son, Dan Lahat, is a Tel Aviv city council member for the Yesh Atid party.[2]

Military and political career

Lahat served in the Haganah and then the Israel Defense Forces.[3] While serving in the IDF, he studied law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1956, he was the first Israeli officer to study at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Upon his return, he became an instructor at the IDF Command and Staff School. In 1959, he headed the Operations Branch of the General Staff Operations Department, transferring to the Armor Corps in 1962. In the Six-Day War he was appointed governor of East Jerusalem, and then head of the Central Command Staff with the rank of brigadier general. In 1969 he was appointed commander of the Armored Forces in Sinai. During the War of Attrition he was commander of operations at the Suez Canal. In 1970-1973, he served as chief of the Manpower Directorate.[4]

In February 1974, he became the eighth mayor of Tel Aviv, continuing his tenure until November 1993. He was elected mayor as a member of the Likud.[3]

On September 30, 2014, Lahat was admitted to Ichilov Hospital in critical condition due to a lung infection. He died on the morning of October 1, 2014.[5]

gollark: Hmm, 14 minutes until the time of death, I should probably set up teleports and stuff? Who was it that was available to catch?
gollark: No. That would be very inconvenient. If I was doing it manually I'd binary-search it anyway.
gollark: I've got a time down to probably 10 seconds of accuracy with my automated thingy, but more precision is better.
gollark: Probably should have done that earlier but I forgot.
gollark: I'll try and pin down the precise ToD before then then.

References
  1. Former Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat dies
  2. Shlomo 'Cheech’ Lahat, legendary mayor of Tel Aviv, dies at 86
  3. Levizon-Yanai, Helit (February 22, 2010). "Shlomo Lahat – Mayor That Doesn't Sleep" (in Hebrew). Globes. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
  4. Shlomo Lahat, Jewish Virtual Library
  5. Former Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat passes away at 86
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.