Mayor Yona Yahav of Haifa eulogized Rabbi Eliyahu Yosef Shaar Yeshuv Hakohen, Monday night as one of the city's great sons, explaining that the rabbi "knew how to make religion a bridge between all parts of the population, Jews and Non-Jews alike."
Yahav added, ''Today I lost a friend who married me to my wife and [officiated at the wedding of] my son, and we worked side by side in the Jerusalem municipality, the rabbi as deputy of the late Mayor Teddy Kollek, and I as the head of his office."