Teddy Kollek was a man of many skills. Driving in the snow wasn’t one of them.

Annette Dobbs remembers the time that Kollek, by then an octogenarian, insisted on personally giving her a lift through Jerusalem’s hilly — and uncharacteristically icy — streets.

“Oh, he wasn’t used to driving in the snow,” Dobbs, who was president of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation at the time, recalled with a laugh.

That may have been the only aspect of life in Jerusalem Kollek didn’t master. The six-term mayor who presided over the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem and transformed the ancient city into a modern one died Tuesday, Jan. 2 at the age of 95.

He was born May 27, 1911 in Austria-Hungary, raised in Vienna and named Theodore after Herzl. Kollek grew up in a strongly Zionist family and immigrated to pre-state Israel in 1935. He co-founded Kibbutz Ein Gev near the Sea of Galilee in 1937 and helped illicitly obtain many of the weapons Israel utilized in the War of Independence.

Kollek was an early ally of David Ben-Gurion, serving as chief aide to Israel’s first prime minister from 1952 to 1964. In 1965 he took Ben-Gurion’s suggestion to run for mayor of Jerusalem and ascended to the post that would define his life. He served six terms over the next 28 years before losing in his seventh try to Ehud Olmert in 1993.

“The first time I was in Jerusalem was 1966, so he had just taken over as mayor. And I remember the city was dirty and had very few parks,” recalled Rabbi Brian Lurie, the former longtime head of the JCF. “But he began a campaign of cleaning up the city, and the dramatic difference he made as far as the cleanliness of the city and the magnificent parks and the cultural events — this was all Teddy.

“One of the ironies is, he spent all his years in a very dilapidated [municipal] building and built a really wonderful city hall he never inhabited. Olmert was the first to go into that city hall.”

In a hotbed of anger and strife, Kollek was a man who garnered nearly everyone’s respect. He famously walked the city’s streets without a bodyguard, listed his phone number and, amazingly, cultivated strong ties simultaneously among the city’s Arabs and fervently religious Jews.

While in office, he oversaw the construction of nine Jewish neighborhoods surrounding Jerusalem, which brought 160,000 Jews into the area, and yet, during the second intifada, he advocated ceding some land for peace (though, like any mayor of Jerusalem, he strongly disagreed with dividing the city).

Kollek was a breathtakingly charming man, which went a long way in financing his visions of a peaceful, modern Jerusalem. He was an incredible fundraiser on any continent, in any language.

“Throughout the world, more people knew Teddy than anybody else in the world, in England, France, Italy or America,” recalled Marin landscape architect Lawrence “Larry” Halprin.

Kollek attended Halprin’s bar mitzvah in Israel in 1929; the two were lifelong friends and spent decades building Jerusalem together.

“I supposed the most important thing Teddy achieved was that he was an icon for Jerusalem. He believed in Jerusalem and made everyone else believe in Jerusalem.”

Friends recalled Kollek as a remarkably direct man who would let friends and foes alike know exactly what was on his mind. In one instance, for example, a heckler interrupted a Kollek speech during one of his many mayoral campaigns and, in front of thousands of audience members, Kollek gave the heckler a suggestion that can’t be reprinted here.

“He had a very unique personality. If he was upset you’d know in a minute. If he was your friend, there were no bounds as to how he would relate to you,” said San Franciscan Richard Goldman, a friend of Kollek’s for nearly four decades who cooperated with the mayor and Halprin to build a two-mile promenade in Jerusalem.

“One time we were touring in Jerusalem with him on a bus with a mission from [San Francisco]. And the person who was describing Jerusalem was just not doing it very well, so after about five minutes Teddy grabbed the microphone and said ‘you just sit there and I’ll tell them about it.'”

Kollek was a frequent visitor to San Francisco, and when Goldman returned the favor and acted as tour guide, the mayor would dictate into his pocket tape recorder whenever he saw something he’d like to duplicate in his home city. Kollek had an eye for everything, from greenery to architecture to McDonald’s drive-through restaurants.

Many wondered why he didn’t seek higher office in Israel. Halprin, for one, always argued with his old friend that he should have run for prime minister. But Kollek was devoted to Jerusalem — perhaps even fixated. He was often at his city hall offices at dawn, and closed up the place 16 hours later. He had his own key to the front gate and would let himself in and out.

“He wanted to make Jerusalem as great a city as existed in the world just because it deserves it. And that required constant attention,” said Halprin.

“It was something he really enjoyed. The university was there, there were all the high cultural events, the museum — it was a life’s work for him. And he was much more interested in doing that than being a national politician.”

According to Lurie, “he lived for Jerusalem. Absolutely.”

Kollek is survived by his wife, Tamar, a son and daughter.

The Associated Press and Dina Kraft of JTA contributed to this report.