--- title: Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor | TIME description: The new mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, campaigned on a secular platform, while some voting blocs boycotted the vote canonical: https://time.com/video/4BugK7bZ/ og:title: Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor og:description: The new mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, campaigned on a secular platform, while some voting blocs boycotted the vote og:url: https://time.com/video/4BugK7bZ/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/4BugK7bZ/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor twitter:description: The new mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, campaigned on a secular platform, while some voting blocs boycotted the vote twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/4BugK7bZ/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor [Watch (HLS stream): Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4BugK7bZ.m3u8) (4:49)  _Published 2008-11-13. The new mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, campaigned on a secular platform, while some voting blocs boycotted the vote_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:03 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [At Jerusalem's Holiest Site, the 'Status Quo' Is Breaking Down into Open Conflict](/video/0hjaiQpy/) ### At Jerusalem's Holiest Site, the 'Status Quo' Is Breaking Down into Open Conflict [Californians Bring Passion to Jerusalem's Old City](/video/sBlLBvWk/) ### Californians Bring Passion to Jerusalem's Old City [Gay Pride in Jerusalem](/video/WHwe72Kf/) ### Gay Pride in Jerusalem --- ## Transcript >> There's a new mayor of Jerusalem. This former software mogul turned city councilman, Nir Barkat. Most significant in the city where religion, politics often go hand and hand is that Barkat considers himself secular. >> These are scenes from the victory celebration that went on well into the night on Tuesday. Looking onward s group of Haredi or ultra- Orthodox yeshiva boys, the ultra- Orthodox make up about 1 / 3 of the city's population. Here in the ultra- Orthodox, Mea Shearim, residents were instructed by the Rabbis to vote for the one ultra- Orthodox candidate, Meir Porush. -[ Foreign Language ] >> Mainstream ultra- Orthodox came out in support of Meir Porush whose marketing team turned him into a more lovable animated caricature. >> This owner of a dry cleaning store explains why he supports Porush over the secular Barkat. -[ Foreign Language ] >> A very small segment of the ultra- Orthodox population refused to vote because they are anti- Zionist. -[ Foreign Language ] -[ Foreign Language ] >> These Zionists warn people that participating in the elections is severely forbidden by certain Rabbis -[ Foreign Language ] >> Just down the block but a world apart, another group of Jerusalem residents also boycotted the vote but for different reasons. >> I am Arab- Muslim. I don't- I don't Jewish, I don't Israel- I don't Israel, I don't love it. >> We do not prefer anyone to win. >> Why not? >> Because there is nothing happen to Jerusalem, this Palestine, not just- not just Jerusalem, not just Ramallah, not just Tel Aviv, not just Haifa, not just [ unk ], all this Palestine, we don't have Israel. >> I do not give my vote to anybody. >> The Palestinian authority instructed the Arabs and Easters not to vote in order to protest Israeli occupation of the Eastern part of the city. >> But this man didn't listen. -[ Foreign Language ] He's one from another kind- another kind so a lot of change. I hope. >> He voted for a third candidate, Russian billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak who lobbied hard for the Arab vote despite his effort and his money >> Only two percent of Arabs from Easters have voted and Gaydamak could only muster less than four percent of the total vote. Nir Barkat campaigned on a platform of rebuilding Jerusalem's struggling economy, improving education and bringing young working adults back to the city. >> It's like we're going down the hill and now we're in the place that we can stop and go back up. >> Well the city- the city is deteriorating in almost every aspect and the students and the young don't live in the city and there are fewer jobs and fewer culture events and … >> In the past five years the total Israeli economy has gone up, the economy of Tel Aviv, Haifa, [ unk ], Beersheba all these cities have kind of gotten better. Jerusalem has actually gotten worse. >> He rallied around everyone in Jerusalem who is neither ultra- Orthodox nor Arab and ended up winning by nine percentage points. Like any good politician, his victory speech was a message of unity and tolerance. -[ Foreign Language ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Jerusalem's New Secular Mayor","description":"The new mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, campaigned on a secular platform, while some voting blocs boycotted the vote","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/4BugK7bZ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2008-11-13T19:36:42.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4BugK7bZ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/4BugK7bZ/","duration":"PT4M49S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/4BugK7bZ/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```