Israel Southern comfort Since Mayor Ruvik Danilovich took office six years ago, Beersheba has developed at a dizzying pace By Patricia Golan

THE MAYOR was fuming. The long-planned a dispute between the Finance and Defense IDF training bases to the central Negev and massive relocation of Israel Defense Forces Ministries. the Intelligence Directorate and the C4I Tele- facilities from the center of the country to The biggest project the state has ever processing Corps to Beersheba, has been the south has just been put on hold due to known, involving the staged transfer of eight stymied by what Beersheba Mayor Ruvik

24 THE JERUSALEM REPORT JANUARY 26, 2015 Ruvik Danilovich poses on the new Pipes Bridge, a pedestrian bridge incorporating existing water pipes, which connects the Beersheba River Park to the Old City

His city is rapidly on its way to becoming the country’s Silicon Valley. Partly in antic- ipation of the army’s move south, several of the world’s largest R&D high-tech corpo- rations are setting up their main cyber and investment centers in the city. Multination- als, such as Deutsche Telekom, EMC Corp., IBM and Lockheed Martin have begun moving into the new Advanced Technolo- gies Park (ATP) next to Ben-Gurion Uni- versity. While some of the transfer has already been completed, the high-tech relocation project, the key to what promises to be the economic transformation of the Negev, had suddenly been delayed. With the dissolution of the 19th Knesset, the ministries had accused each other of withholding funds. In a last-minute reprieve, acting Finance Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Net- anyahu pushed through a cabinet decision on January 4, authorizing the budget for the move. Danilovich could breathe a sigh of relief. Danilovich is Beersheba’s eighth mayor since the establishment of the state, but he’s the first who was born and raised in the city. “All the rest parachuted in from other places in the country,” observes Ruvik. “I think the residents finally understood that it was about time a local boy took charge.” Danilovich’s roots are in the Labor party, beginning his career with the Histadrut labor federation’s southern district. He campaigned and worked for former mayor Yaakov Terner beginning in Tern- er’s first run for the office in 1998. Terner’s campaign jingle at the time was “Beersheba takes off with Terner,” a slogan that played successfully on his reputation as one of the country’s great flyboys – IAF fighter pilot and brigadier-general – and later, after he re- tired from the IAF, as police inspector-gen- eral. Terner took the young Danilovich under his wing, appointing him deputy mayor at age 28 in charge of education, sports, music, culture and neighborhood renewal. Danilovich start- ed showing up in schools, developing rela-

YEHUDA LACHIANI / MAARIV / LACHIANI YEHUDA tionships with his future voters – it was his first lesson in building a political base. Danilovich calls “ego fights between people Beersheba has developed at a dizzying pace, Terner made no secret of the fact that he who don’t seem to understand this is a mis- with billions invested in private and public would like to see his protégé as his suc- sion of the highest national importance.” projects. “Ruvik,” as everyone calls him, cessor, but he never expected Danilovich Since Danilovich took office in 2008 has been a visible and admired presence. to run against him. In the 2008 elections,

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Danilovich stood against his mentor and predecessor, and won 60 percent of the vote. “For many years Ruvik was in the shadow of Terner, who helped him develop and in the end he became his rival for the job,” says veteran Beersheba journalist Uri Binder. “This was hard for Terner – his protégé be- trayed him.”

DANILOVICH IS still sensitive about that first win. “I really loved and admired Terner. We had a rather special relationship, and I wanted his blessing, like a father and son,” he says. Terner was also ill, a fact not widely known by the public, so Danilovich was certain he wouldn’t run for another term, and went ahead with his campaign. One of his first decisions on becoming mayor was to be sure the soon-to-be-completed huge sports com- plex, like Teddy Stadium (named for mayor Teddy Kollek) in Jerusalem, will be named for Terner. Danilovich’s key move upon being elected was to deal with the endemic cronyism and corruption for which the city was known. Terner’s predecessor Yitzhak Rager died in office in 1997 before he could be convicted of fraud and embezzlement for which he had been indicted. Terner never managed to implement the financial recovery program because of opposition from powerful inter- ested parties. Danilovich set out to clean out the stables. “Any mayor who talks about a mission needs to change the rules of the game,” he says today. “If the system he inherits is corrupt, no vision is going to help. First of all, you have to come in with clean hands, without taking an agora from anyone.” He relates that his parents took a mortgage to This meant, among other things, signing Having inherited a city that was at the pay for his campaigns. demolition orders for illegal buildings and edge of bankruptcy, he managed to effect putting an end to under the table payoffs. a fiscal reorganization that got the city out BEERSHEBA IS Threatened from several quarters, the police of debt and won it official recognition as “a provided him with around-the-clock securi- stable municipality,” no longer reliant on na- RAPIDLY ON ITS WAY ty for half a year. tional government funding. “I know I look like a kid, but I’m really Danilovich has overseen a major trans- TO BECOMING not,” the boyish-looking mayor cracks. formation of Beersheba from the backwater “When people finally understood that I long perceived as a sleepy, rundown de- THE COUNTRY’S couldn’t be pushed around, there were no velopment town – a pit stop on the way to more tricks.” Eilat – to a rapidly developing metropolis, SILICON VALLEY He set about changing the image of the with billions invested in private and public city, to realize his dream of enhancing it. He projects. “People thought I was crazy. I knew the appeared on TV promoting Beersheba as the The list of new buildings and projects is minute I was elected, a kid, only 37 years old, capital of opportunities, energetically made long and impressive, including the stunning everyone was going to test me. If I was going the rounds of every event, hired “branding” Negev Museum of Art; a state-of-the-art to get anything at all done in this city, I had consultants and strategic planners, and gath- 12,000 seat open-air theater (“Amphithe- to make sure that the government was run in ered around him many young and talented atre”); a new enclosed Central Bus Station; a straight, honest and above-board manner.” people. the Carasso Science museum; the Turkish

26 THE JERUSALEM REPORT JANUARY 26, 2015 A depiction of future development at the new Advanced Technologies Park (ATP) next to Ben-Gurion University

ing prices in Beersheba have risen by an astounding 67 percent in the last few years. “We must keep the young population by improving the housing situation so that someone who wants to build a private house won’t have to move out of the city,” he says. “But in order to do this, people have to earn decent salaries, so we’ve been working on this, to bring in places of employment, cre- ate places of entertainment. We’ve had three billion shekels of investments in public proj- ects. The city has developed like crazy, and young people are finally coming here.” City Hall, where Danilovich’s office is lo- cated, is a throwback to the past – a prime example of the raw concrete architectural design known as Brutalism, for which Beer- sheba is famous. Built in the first decades of the state, those terrifying, massive struc- tures today sit alongside soaring marble and blue glass buildings, such as the courthouse and 30-story residential towers. Many of the new projects were launched long before Danilovich’s tenure, but came to fruition after he took office. “Even with those projects that are not directly con- nected to him, he’s been involved in their development, promoting them,” comments Elizabeth Homans, the local representative of the US-based Goodman Philanthropic Foundation, which has been a major funder of significant projects in the city. “He really

COURTESY BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY BEN-GURION COURTESY wants to make this a city where people will stay. Maybe others have put us on the map, Train Station and Railroad Museum; the Much of the Ottoman-era Old City, which but he has made us alive.” Abraham’s Well Visitors Center; giant malls; has undergone significant gentrification Interviewed in his office, Danilovich has community centers; the multi-hall Beershe- along two of its main streets, is still fairly a tendency of slipping into slogans, speak- ba Performing Arts complex; and the soon slummy. Sanitation, particularly in the older ing in agitated declarations, as if shouting to be completed Terner sports complex, with neighborhoods, is frequently poor. through a megaphone. But out and about in a 16,000-seat soccer stadium and enclosed the city he is clearly in his element. 3,000-seat multipurpose sports hall. FOR DECADES, Beersheba suffered from “Ruvik” – whether in running shorts New parks have been created, and – in what an increasingly diminished tax base as res- and T-shirt keeping up with the crowds in was at first the butt of sarcastic jokes in this idents fled to the neighboring communities Beersheba’s Glow Run last year, or showing desert city – fountains spouting recycled wa- of Omer, Meitar and Lehavim where they up on his own at concerts in his trademark ter are now found everywhere. The city has could build individual homes with gardens. jeans – is genuinely popular. His mixed twice sent out to residents slick brochures de- While the reversal of that trend had already Ashkenazi-Sephardi background (his scribing and picturing the dozens of impres- begun under Terner, Danilovich has man- grandparents are a mix from Tunisia, Be- sive projects– those that have already been aged to accelerate it and new residential larus, Egypt and Morocco) also contributes completed and those under construction or neighborhoods with high-quality private to his local boy persona in this ethnically planned, boldly noting due dates. homes have sprung up around the city. (Un- mixed city. Beersheba still has plenty of rundown like cities in the north and center, Beersheba At a reception last summer at the Keren neighborhoods, however, with blocks of has the advantage of having large tracts of Hayesod Switzerland Youth Center in the gray, soul-destroying apartment buildings. land that belong to the municipality.) Hous- center of the Old City, the 20-something

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A JNP-US fountain – One of dozens of new installations in Beersheba’s squares and crossroads that use recycled water and are lit up at night crowd is snacking on free cheese sticks and cheap wine. There are long-haired young men carrying guitars, children running about, babies crawling on the floor of the lobby, and a DJ playing loud Israeli rock. The Youth Center, with its distinctive arches and large plaza in front, includes recording studios, a theater and galleries specifically for the use of local young artists

and musicians. It’s another of Danilovich’s BEERSHEBA OF MUNICIPALITY COURTESY pet projects, initiated when he was deputy mayor. When he arrives at the center with no class university with international links vision but with money and power.” photographer or entourage, he’s greeted like (Ben-Gurion University) and the beginning Any city under attack has its resources se- an old school pal as he jokes with everyone, of the implementation of the army’s move verely tested. During this past summer’s 50- picking up babies, listening to stories. This to the Negev. All of this has attracted inter- day conflict with Hamas (Operation Protec- is clearly his crowd. national interest in investments not experi- tive Edge), dozens of Gaza rockets targeted “He’s one of the hevre [guys],” says enced in the past. Even the city’s soccer team the city. Repeated sirens warned residents Shuki Ivri, a local volunteer and artist. Hapoel Beersheba finally started winning. to move to safe rooms, stairwells or public “Ruvik hasn’t forgotten where he comes And then there’s the clout of the Jewish Na- shelters. from. He drives his own car, visits people tional Fund, which anointed Beersheba the Danilovich had been there before. Just and always wants to help. He helps people centerpiece of its ambitious Blueprint Ne- three weeks after his first election in 2008 in need behind the scenes that no one knows gev campaign launched several years ago. he’d had his trial by fire when 500 rockets about and isn’t seeking publicity.” JNF-US has initiated and funded dozens of were fired on Beersheba from Gaza. Un- He also answers his own official email projects, the most dramatic of which is the til then, no one had believed rockets could personally. Beersheba River Park, a strip of landscaped reach the city. Suddenly, the brand new green parkland with bike trails and prome- mayor became a nationally recognized face DANILOVICH WAS nades. The park was created in an area once on Israeli media. described as the “armpit” of the city – a Though some residents found their local REELECTED FOR A dry riverbed near the southern entrance of shelters vandalized or unusable in the lat- Beersheba that was piled with wrecked cars est extended attacks, Danilovich insists that SECOND TERM IN 2013 and odiferous trash accumulated over the his city coped far more efficiently this last decades. Eventually, the new park will have summer than it did in the past.“We learned WITH MORE THAN 92 Israel’s largest artificial lake. lessons. It took us a few wars to get to the PERCENT OF THE VOTE point of knowing how to function during an AT A RECENT dedication of the 12,000 seat emergency.” open-air Grossman Amphitheatre in the Considering Ruvik’s immense popularity Those who know him say Danilovich en- park, Danilovich commented that “it sounds locally, the question naturally arises regard- tered office with two hang-ups: his height almost surreal that an organization based ing his national ambitions. After all, other and his English. He seems to have overcome thousands of miles away managed to per- local politicians have been lured away from his shyness about both, and has travelled suade the Israeli government to get involved their home bases. abroad several times to speak to potential in a project. The JNF saw the opportunity “Two years ago I was courted by certain donors. and the vision, and only then did the govern- political parties,” he grins. “They gave me In the most recent municipal elections in ment come in.” very tempting offers, even to be a cabinet 2013, Danilovich was reelected for a sec- Danilovich has good reason to be grate- minister, but I said ‘no thanks.’ I have, first ond term by a landslide with more than 92 ful. He’s only half-joking when he declares of all, a responsibility to the public that elect- percent of the vote. Perhaps because Dani- that he may be the mayor of Beersheba “but ed me mayor here, and honestly my place is lovich’s win had been widely expected, vot- [JNF-US CEO] Russell Robinson is the here in the Negev.” er turnout was poor. Nevertheless, it was an president.” Danilovich points to a large photo of David unprecedented victory. “I get very emotional about them,” Ben-Gurion displayed prominently behind With all his youthful and energetic charms, Danilovich adds. “The JNF came here in a his desk. “I’m following in the footsteps of the mayor has also had the good luck of com- period when the city wasn’t very attractive, the greatest leader of the 20th century who ing into office at a time of greatly improved with a negative image. No one looked in our said that the future of Israel lies in the Negev.” road and rail facilities, an expanding world- direction. They came here, not only with a For Ruvik, it’s also probably more fun. ■

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