Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery

Interesting facts

Menachem Begin chose this cemetery over Mount Herzl, where most Israeli leaders lie, to be buried beside his wife Aliza and two underground fighters.

The land of the present main cemetery was first leased from the Islamic Waqf of Jerusalem in the 16th century.

It is often described as the largest and holiest historical Jewish cemetery in the world.

Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, known as the Ohr ha-Chaim, an 18th-century commentator revered across the Jewish world, is buried here.

Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in Mandatory Palestine and a founding figure of religious Zionism, lies in the cemetery.

The Maiden of Ludmir, a rare 19th-century woman who led a Hasidic following as a rebbe, is buried on the hill.

Other graves include the German-Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schüler and Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel art school in Jerusalem.

Why it is worth it

The western slope of the Mount of Olives, facing the walls of Jerusalem's Old City across the Kidron Valley, is covered by one of the oldest and most important Jewish burial grounds in the world. Tens of thousands of flat limestone tombs — estimates run from about 70,000 to 150,000 — step down the hillside in pale terraces, so densely that from the Old City the slope looks almost like a single carved surface. Burials here reach back to the Second Temple period, and the cemetery as it now appears took shape from the 16th century onward.

The reason for the choice is written into the landscape. The cemetery faces the Temple Mount directly, and Jewish tradition holds that the resurrection of the dead will begin on this hill, and that the Messiah will appear on the Mount of Olives before entering the city. For centuries Jews from across the diaspora sought to be buried here, or to have earth from the hill placed in their graves elsewhere. Among those who lie here are the Hebrew-language reviver Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the Nobel-winning writer S. Y. Agnon, Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin, buried here in 1992.

Between 1948 and 1967 the cemetery suffered heavy damage — Israel complained to the United Nations in 1954 that tombstones had been broken up and taken for building, and a road cut through graves — and restoration went on for decades after. Next to the cemetery lies the far older rock-cut Silwan necropolis, a reminder of how long this hillside has been a place of the dead. It is a place for quiet, respectful attention; the view from the upper paths over the Old City and the Temple Mount is one of the most powerful in Jerusalem.

Getting there

The cemetery lies about 1 km from the Old City, across the Kidron Valley, and can be reached on foot or by road to the top of the Mount of Olives. Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) is about 43 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

The Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives is the oldest and most important Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives had been a traditional Hebrew/Jewish burial location in antiquity. The present-day main cemetery is approximately five centuries old, having been first leased from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf in the sixteenth century. The cemetery contains anywhere between 70,000 and 150,000 tombs, including the tombs of famous figures in early modern Jewish history. It is considered to be the largest and holiest historical Jewish cemetery on earth.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia