Sadiq Khan, who was elected as London’s first Muslim Mayor last week, told The Jewish News that he plans to lead a trade delegation to Israel, in response to a question about his campaign promise to visit the Jewish State.

“I’ve not even had my first Monday at work to be fair, I’ve had six hours sleep since Wednesday. But I’m keen to make sure I’m the most pro-business mayor we’ve ever had and that means going on trade missions including to Tel Aviv,” he said.

In the interview, Khan also said he believes it is important to improve Jewish-Muslim relations in London.

A self-described moderate Muslim, Khan attended a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony with British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis on Sunday in his first official appearance as London Mayor.

“We’ve got to accept there are some people who say they’re Muslim, some people of the Jewish faith who don’t like the fact I’m here, that I’m sitting next to the chief rabbi,” he told The Jewish News.

“My message to those people is we live in the greatest city in the world and have to go get along. I’m the mayor of London, the most diverse city in the world, and I’ll be everyone’s mayor. No preferential treatment ,but I have a role to build bridges. My signing-in ceremony was deliberately designed to show the sort of a mayor I’ll be and I started as I mean to go on.”

During the election campaign, Khan went out of his way to court the Jewish community and was the first Labour MP to denounce the anti-Semitic comments of his predecessor, Ken Livingstone. During the campaign, a kippah-clad Khan attended a Seder and met with shoppers at a kosher market. “I accept that the Labour Party in the last two elections is not the natural place where Londoners of the Jewish faith have placed their vote. So that’s why it’s really important for me to spend time understanding the issues, talking and listening,” he said.

But one unavoidable sore spot for Jews regarding Khan’s record is the work he did while a human rights lawyer, prior to becoming an MP, on behalf of anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. Khan fought to get the exclusion order banning him from entering Britain overturned. Khan at the time defended himself by saying that “even the worst people deserve a legal defense” though he was technically not defending Farrakhan at the time but rather challenging the government.

(Source: EJP)