4th Current Jewish Mayor of a Major US City Asserts Himself

New York, Los Angeles and Chicago all have Jewish mayors now but the new Jewish mayor of the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California, San Diego may be as interesting as Rahm Emanuel who is featured on this week’s Time magazine cover as the “Chicago Bull.”

Bob Filner who has been serving as mayor of San Diego for a half year and has garnered significant press for his confrontational style, very much honed as a 1960s Jewish progressive now going up against entrenched business interests in San Diego.

Bob Filner

Currently, three of the four US major city Jewish mayors are known for their confrontational styles, and they may be channeling the ghost of their mayoral predecessor, Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek.  The fourth, Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti who will begin his term in July 2013 as mayor of another large American city urban issues begging to be aggressively tackled.

It may not be surprising if the Jewish stereotype in the US may well shift from the Woody Allen nebbish to the bullish Rahm Emanuel.