‘Major pressure’ on outgoing Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi to join national politics

“Major pressure” is being applied on outgoing Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi to join national politics, he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post last week.

The pressure is not new and has accompanied Revivi during the past five rounds of elections since 2019, he said.

But now that Revivi is on his way out of office, the door is open to upgrade to the national level, he said, adding that while there are “major vectors” pushing him in that direction, it is still too early to tell.

“It’s not attractive to go into national politics,” Revivi said. “It’s way more frustrating. It’s way harder to make decisions, and most mayors want to stay mayors because they enjoyed [the] independence… On the other hand, when we as mayors look about and we see how the central government is run, we have a lot of criticism, and we say that with our experience we can go and create a change there.”

Revivi claims entering national politics "not attractive"

Revivi, 55, has served as mayor of Efrat since 2008 but lost in the recent election to Dudi Sheffler. During 2016-2020, he was also the international liaison of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, and he is an IDF lieutenant-colonel in the reserves.

During his childhood, Revivi spent time in the US and UK. His wife immigrated to Israel from the UK, and his English is perfect, a rare commodity among Israeli politicians, in general, and religious ones, in particular.

Not only does he speak English, but Revivi said he also knows how to “understand English,” a skill that is lacking in the national arena.

For example, Revivi, who attended former US president Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony by invitation, said while his colleagues gushed with excitement over Trump’s support for Israel, he was more wary of the “America first” foreign policy. The significance of this concept was lost on non-English-speaking politicians, he said.

Fiery statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir against US President Joe Biden’s policies indicate a lack of understanding of the importance of the US-Israel relationship, Revivi said.

Biden is “proving to be maybe the most friendly president to the State of Israel that Israel ever had,” he said. But Biden is a Democrat in an election year, and some of his policies, such as recent sanctions on several settlers, should be viewed in that light and not necessarily as an act against Israel, he added.

Some ministers are acting “as if they are equivalent to the president of the United States,” Revivi said. “We’re not talking about it between equals,” he added.

The sanctions imposed by Biden were a mistake, Revivi said, adding that he would think about them differently.

“When a president of the United States says to the State of Israel, ‘I don’t rely on your judicial system; I don’t rely on you enforcing the law,’ that is a problematic statement,” he said. “We shouldn’t have gone into that situation.”

Israel depends on the US for munitions, including Iron Dome missiles, and alienating the US could lead to rockets flying uninterrupted from Gaza to Tel Aviv, Revivi said.

Cabinet ministers in current and past governments have also acted insensitivity toward US Jewry, he said. When ministers spoke out against the Kotel compromise to enable egalitarian prayer at an isolated segment of the Western Wall or against recognizing non-Orthodox conversion, they were not aware of the implications for US Jewry, he added. Similarly, when Israeli ministers call incessantly on Diaspora Jews to make aliyah, they are not always aware of the prices these Jews pay to do so, which often include a downgrade in living standards or salaries.

At the beginning of the war against Hamas, “A lot of donations came from the United States, a very hard-warming hug from the Jews in the Diaspora,” Revivi said. But they did not feel like Israelis had expressed their appreciation, and some felt that “nobody was listening to them once the money came,” he said.

Revivi said one of his accomplishments as mayor was that Efrat grew by 60% during his tenure, including the eight years of the Obama administration, which viewed settlement expansion unfavorably. This required an understanding of the dynamics of Israeli-US relations and was another example of the value of leaders who have this understanding, he said.

Revivi said he intends to use his ability to serve as a bridge between the US and Israel in his next endeavor, adding that he does not know whether this will be in the political arena, the Jewish relations arena, or elsewhere.