Last week, on Jerusalem Day, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion met with the Ma’ariv daily newspaper to discuss Jerusalem, Jerusalem Day, and Jerusalem since his election in December 2018. You can read the entire interview in Hebrew here.
Interviewer: We didn’t forget that our interview was scheduled in honor of Jerusalem Day…In celebration of this day, we wanted to know what the city’s significant accomplishments have been.
“My biggest achievement this past year is the clean-up revolution in Jerusalem,” he says. “Jerusalem is not as dirty as it was; it is now a clean city. We’ve privatized some services and also increased budgets. As a result of this transformation, Jerusalem is now completely clean, both East and West.”
Interviewer: You mean, the fact that until now we’ve seen a not-so-clean Jerusalem was due solely to a lack of budgets? Because when I asked senior officials in the past, they answered that it was the local mentality, and that there’s nothing to do about it.
“And here you see that really isn’t true. The proof is unequivocal. I can see it in the number of people who compliment me and say thank you, and that’s really exciting to hear. It turned out to be just the opposite: Many residents in all neighborhoods – the secular, ultra-Orthodox, Arab – cared, just like you, about the situation of clean streets in the city. Most of the public is interested in a clean city. And there was a significant revolution, which, of course, included the allocation of tens of millions of shekels to the sanitation department.
Many of these accomplishments have taken place thanks to the activists, from all parts of the city – secular, religious, Haredi Jews and Arabs – of the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together initiative. Kol Hakavod, and keep up the good work!
