Fleur Hassan-Nahoum

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum (born September 27, 1973) is an Israeli politician and policy maker. She currently serves as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem in charge of foreign relations, international economic development and tourism. She is also the co-founder and founding member of the UAE - Israel Business Council.

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum
Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem
Assumed office
2018
Personal details
Born (1973-09-27) 27 September 1973
London, England
Political partyLikud
Children4

Biography

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum was born in London, UK, and grew up in Gibraltar. She is the daughter of Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, who served as Chief Minister and Mayor of Gibraltar,[1] and his second wife Marcelle Bensimon,[2] both Jews of Moroccan origin. Her younger sister, Marlene Hassan Nahon, is a Gibraltarian Member of Parliament and leader of the Together Gibraltar Party.[3]

Hassan-Nahoum grew up bilingual, speaking Spanish and English.[4]

In 1991, at the age of 18, Hassan-Nahoum moved back to London to study law at King's College London, where she served as president of the King's College Jewish Society.[3] After qualifying as a barrister in 1997, she practiced law in London and became campaign director of World Jewish Relief.[4]

In 2001, Hassan-Nahoum immigrated to Israel.[5] She is married with four children.[6]

Upon graduation from law school, Hassan-Nahoum was a barrister at Middle Temple and later served as campaign director at World Jewish Relief, a British Jewish charitable organization working with Jewish and non-Jewish communities.[7]

After immigrating to Israel in 2001 during the Second Intifada,[8] she served as senior associate with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, an international aid organization, and from 2007 as CEO of Tikva Children's Home, an orphan-and-poverty-relief organization which supports homeless, abandoned and abused Jewish children in the former Soviet Union.[9]

Hassan-Nahoum is the CEO and founder of an international strategic communications firm, Message Experts.[10]

Political career

In 2013, Hassan-Nahoum joined the Yerushalmim Party, which seeks to turn Jerusalem into a more pluralistic and open city.[11] In 2016, she joined the Jerusalem City Council, heading transportation and conservation of heritage sites. She served as chairman of Yerushalmim until January 2018.

In the November 2018 Jerusalem municipal elections, Hassan-Nahoum ran as number 2 to Minister Zeev Elkin of the Jerusalem Will Succeed Party, which was established by Jerusalem's previous mayor Nir Barkat.[12]

Mayor Moshe Lion named her Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem on November 13, 2018, in charge of tourism and foreign relations,[13] including philanthropy, international economic development, business relations and Diaspora affairs.[14]

Hassan-Nahoum is the only British-born citizen currently holding a senior political role in Israeli politics.[15]

As deputy mayor, Hassan-Nahoum sees increasing participation in the workforce and improving education in the Arab sector as major challenges for the municipality.[4]

Among Hassan-Nahoum’s responsibilities is accommodating new embassies in the city. She is working with the U.S. State Department on its embassy in Jerusalem and helping to plan an embassy district in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Arnona.[16]

In 2020, Hassan-Nahoum was one of the founding members of the UAE-Israel Business Council, alongside Justine Zwerling, which was established following the Abraham Accords Peace Treaty between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. In October 2020, Hassan led a delegation of Israeli officials, business people and entrepreneurs that visited the two Gulf states to pursue cooperation in various areas, as technology, business, and tourism. Hassan-Nahoum organized an inaugural meeting of the Gulf-Israel Women's Forum, a group of Emirati and Israeli women that serves as a division of the UAE-Israel Business Council. .[17][18]

Views and opinions

Hassan-Nahoum describes herself as a religious Jew and a Zionist.[19]

She is a firm believer that women should be part of local government: "I firmly believe that until women are in 50% of all decision-making positions our world will remain unbalanced. Local government affects our everyday lives and it is crucial to have women in these positions because when women are around the table the decisions are simply better."[20]

During the 2018 municipal elections, the Likud's local Jerusalem branch called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to retract his support of Zeev Elkin for Mayor when Elkin included Hassan-Nahoum on his electoral list. The Likud claimed that her links to the New Israel Fund and other left wing groups made it impossible for them to support Elkin.[21]

She is as an advocate for marginalized populations in Israel including Haredi women, immigrants, and Ethiopians, and for evening-out spending among all of Jerusalem's populations.[3] She has also spoken publicly on developing Jerusalem as a technology hub; transport and mobility issues; budgetary efficiency; good governance; and on the rights of cancer patients. She has been tipped as a future mayor of Jerusalem or Israeli foreign minister.[22]

Hassan-Nahoum came under fire for attending an event organised by the far-left Emek Shaveh group, and sponsored by the New Israel Fund and the European Union. Families of victims of terrorism protested her attendance claiming that she was giving legitimacy to a group that encourages terrorism.[23]

In an interview in 2019, Hassan-Nahoum said that with her diverse family background, she is able to understand and reach out to different communities: "I can respect Arab culture, speak like an Andalusian and think like a Latin person, a British person and a Sephardi Jew."[4]

See also

References
  1. "Sir Joshua's daughter takes seat in Jerusalem council".
  2. "Obituary: Sir Joshua Hassan | The Independent".
  3. Joe Wallen (16 January 2018). "Jerusalem's new British-born deputy mayor: Israel is no apartheid state - it just has an issue with bad PR". The Independent.
  4. "Meet Jerusalem's deputy mayor: Fleur Hassan-Nahoum - JNS.org".
  5. "Jerusalem mayoral candidate picks U.K.-born politician as running mate - Israel News - Jerusalem Post". www.jpost.com.
  6. "Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Councilor of Jerusalem: "The transfer of the US embassy pushes the Palestinians to sit down and talk to us"". May 17, 2018.
  7. Debbie Bartlett (29 December 2017). "New deputy mayor of Jerusalem is Gibraltarian". SUR in English.
  8. "Fleur Hassan-Nahoum". TEDx Jerusalem.
  9. "Fleur Hassan-Nahoum". Women's International Zionist Organization.
  10. Marion Fischel (2 June 2016). "Daughter of Gibraltar's first mayor inducted into Jerusalem city council". The Jerusalem Post.
  11. Rafi Perlstein (5 August 2018). "Elections 2018: After a political storm, Councilor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum opens her mouth" בחירות 2018: אחרי שגרמה לסערה פוליטית, חברת המועצה פלר חסן־נחום פותחת את הפה. mynet Jerusalem (in Hebrew).
  12. Elkin puts Anglo candidate second on his list
  13. "Jerusalem is the 'laboratory for the solution' says deputy mayor". Jewish Insider. April 1, 2019.
  14. Martin, James (28 December 2018). "UK-born politician named Jerusalem's first Diaspora minister". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  15. "'It's just bad PR': Meet Jerusalem's new UK-born deputy mayor and her controversial opinions". RT International.
  16. "Daily Kickoff: On the trail with Nir Barkat | Meet Fleur Hassan-Nahoum | Jeff Zucker for NYC Mayor? | Will Bloomberg reconsider?". Jewish Insider. April 2, 2019.
  17. "Deputy mayor of Jerusalem visits UAE to forge business ties". www.israelhayom.com. 2020-10-11. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  18. Natasha Turak (2020-10-12). "Saudi Arabia is the 'white whale' of Israel's Middle East peace deals, Jerusalem official says". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  19. Oryszczuk, Stephen (19 May 2017). "Meet Jerusalem's 'Orthodox feminist' would-be mayor". The Times of Israel.
  20. Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll (22 October 2018). "Voting for women can make our lives better". The Jewish Chronicle.
  21. Channel 20 (30 September 2019). בירושלים דורש מרה"מ שלא לתמוך באלקין "Likud calls on the Prime Minister not to support Elkin" Check |url= value (help). Channel 20 (in Hebrew).
  22. Yisrael Frei (11 April 2018). "Leon is launching, the Likud is debating, the CEO is groping" ליאון משיק, 'הליכוד' מתלבט, המנכ"ל מגשש. Kol Hazman (in Hebrew).
  23. Michal Chin (19 December 2019). שכולות מוחות: משנה לראש עיריית ירושלים תשתתף בכנס של ארגון שמאל קיצוני "Protest by families of the victims of terrorism" Check |url= value (help). MAKO (in Hebrew).
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