Father of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion has passed away at the age of 92

The father of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Shalom Lion, passed away this morning (Wednesday) at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv at the age of 92, the municipality announced.

Shalom Lion was born in 1934 in Thessaloniki, Greece. In 1935, at the age of just one and a half, he moved to Jerusalem with his family, while other relatives chose to remain in Greece.

"My grandfather insisted on immigrating to the Land of Israel and arriving in Jerusalem. He always said that his place is in the Land of Israel," the Mayor of Jerusalem said in an interview with Arutz 7.

Like many of the Jews of Thessaloniki, the members of the Lion family who remained in Greece were taken to Auschwitz and perished in the Holocaust. Moshe Lion shared that his father did not speak much about the suffering his family experienced. In 2022, Shalom participated with his son in the March of the Living in Poland and visited the Auschwitz extermination camp for the first time, where his family members perished.

In his youth, the father of the Jerusalem Mayor moved to Givatayim, where he served for decades as a cantor at the "Heichal Moshe" synagogue for immigrants from the Balkans.

Shalom Lion was a modest man who worked for most of his life in a garage. He was a man of integrity who performed his work faithfully and with faith.

In a statement from the Jerusalem Municipality, it was said:

"Blessed be the True Judge: Shalom Lion, father of the Mayor of Jerusalem, has passed away at the age of 92. His funeral will take place tomorrow (Thursday) at the cemetery in Givatayim, where he will be laid to rest. The Lion family will sit shiva in Jerusalem. May his memory be a blessing. Details of the funeral and shiva will be published later."