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.har hazetim – The Jewish Cemetery: "from the 16th century the cemetery began to take its present shape"Hirst, David. "Rush to Annexation: Israel in Jerusalem." Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, 1974, pp. 3–31: "The Jewish cemetery, rented from the Waqf in the sixteenth century, is strictly speaking Muslim property..." 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 (as opposed to modern) Jewish cemetery on earth.
It is adjacent to the much older archaeological site known as the Silwan necropolis.
History pre-1948
In the 19th century, special significance was attached to Jewish cemeteries in Jerusalem.Ben-Arieh, Yehoshua. (1986). Jerusalem in the 19th century: Emergence of The new city, pp. 24–25 The desire to be buried on the Mount of Olives stemmed in part from the Segulaic advantages attributed to the burial, according to various sources.
During the First and Second Temple Periods, the Jews of Jerusalem were buried in burial caves scattered on the slopes of the Mount, and from the 16th century the cemetery began to take its present shape.
The old Jewish cemetery sprawled over the slopes of the Mount of Olives overlooking the Kidron Valley (Valley of Jehoshaphat), radiating out from the lower, ancient part, which preserved Jewish graves from the Second Temple period; here there had been a tradition of burial uninterrupted for thousands of years. The cemetery was quite close to the Old City, its chief merit being that it lay just across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount: according to a midrash,Pesikta D'Rav Kahane, Targum of Song of Songs it is here that the Resurrection of the Dead would begin. The Messiah will appear on the Mount of Olives, and head toward the Temple Mount. As the sages say: "In the days to come, the righteous will appear and rise in Jerusalem, as it is said, "And they will sprout out of the city like the grass of the field" – and there is no city but Jerusalem".Bavli, Tractate Ketubot 111,b / Tehillim 72:16.
Jordanian rule
During Jordanian rule, the Jewish cemetery suffered damage to 38,000 gravestones and tombs.Hirst, David. "Rush to Annexation: Israel in Jerusalem." Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, 1974, pp. 3–31: "As for the cemetery, the Israeli "facts" are less, perhaps, a straight lie than an exaggeration. The Jewish cemetery did indeed suffer the depredation of vandals; one service which tombstones performed was as paving stones for the latrines of a nearby en-campment. A road to the Intercontinental Hotel on the top of the Mount of Olives encroached on the cemetery. It was deplorable, but scarcely the official and systematic destruction authorized by the Jordanian government of which the White Paper spoke."
Between 1949 and 1967, Israel accused the Jordanians of not protecting the site. As early as the end of 1949, Israeli viewers stationed on Mount Zion reported that Arab residents had been uprooting some tombstones. In 1954, the Israeli government filed a formal complaint with the UN General Assembly regarding the further destruction of graves and plowing in the area.
Israel also stated that in the late 1950s the Jordanian army used tombstones to build a military camp for the Arab Legion in nearby al-Eizariya to floor tents and toilets,Motke Sofer, "A Tour of the Mount of Olives", in Eli Schiller (ed., With Sefi Ben Yosef, Nathan Shor, Mordechai Sofer). "The Mount of Olives", Ariel Press, Jerusalem, 1978, p. 46.; that some tombstones were transferred to the courtyard of the Citadel of David, where they were smashed; that their fragments were used as markers for the parade ground;Meron Benvenisti, opposite the closed wall – divided and united Jerusalem. Weinfeld and Nicholson 1973. and that when Jordan built new roads – one to the new Hotel Inter-Continental Jerusalem ("Seven Arches") on top of the Mount of Olives, one extending the road to Jericho, and one expanding the access road to the village of Silwan – numerous graves were destroyed in the process.Menucha Toker, the Jordanians destroyed, Rabbi Levi Meshakam, from the weekly "Mishpacha" on the Shturem website
Shortly after 1967, these claims escalated into a war of words between Israeli Minister off Religious Affairs Zerah Warhaftig, who held a press conference condemning Jordan's destruction of Jewish graves and the Old City's synagogues, and the Custodian of the Holy Land, Franciscan Father Isaias Andrès, who complained that Warhaftig failed to mention that Muslim and Christian cemeteries had also been desecrated during the 1948 war.
Israeli rule
In 1967, the Knesset passed the Protection of Holy Places Law, establishing legal protection for the Mount of Olives Cemetery and similar sites. The law established criminal penalties for anyone either desecrating such a site, or violating "the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them." A 1981 amendment named 16 such places specifically, including the cemetery, although the law continues to protect all places considered holy by any religion.
In 1992, with the burial of Prime Minister Menachem Begin on the Mount of Olives, it was decided to establish a dedicated security company for the cemetery, and to increase the protection of visitors to the site. In 2005, acts of harassment against Jews intensified, and a guard unit was created for personal or group escort to those who came to the cemetery. In 2009, cars were attacked and many visitors were injured on the way to the cemetery. The "Jerusalem for generations" association turned to public figures, followed by a debate in the Knesset."Significant increase in violence on the way to the Mount of Olives", Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter's reply to Eli Yishai's. Arab rioters destroy gravestones (including pictures). Two cars were attacked and turned over by rioters on the way to the Mount of Olives (Yesha News Website). Gur Hasidim were attacked on the Mount of Olives (2011). A discussion in the Knesset on the Mount of Olives following the request of Chaim Miller. In 2011, the chairman of the Almagor organization (terror victims association) was attacked and injured on his way to the graves of his Holocaust survivor parents. As a result, an attempt was made to increase public awareness of this attack and to mobilize the authorities and voluntary organizations against it.Hodaya Shark-Hazony, the hand that directs the stone-throwers, on the News1 website, October 22, 2010 As of 2010, the security and personal escort service is free of charge, financed by the Ministry of Housing.Yitzhak Tessler, to die in peace: security service on the Mount of Olives, NRG360 site, October 17, 2010
Till today, burial plots and tombs remain in a state of neglect. The plots of the graves suffer from vandalism, including the desecration of gravestonesAgain desecration of graves in the Mount of Olives, Arutz Sheva, February 25, 2010 and the destruction of graves.Dozens of gravestones were vandalized on the eve of Jerusalem Day – an article from the Nana site A series of government decisions to rehabilitate parts of the mountain, as well as funds allocated for maintenance and renovation, have not yet succeeded in changing the situation.
Notable graves
Many famous people are buried in the cemetery such as Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, known as the Ohr ha-Chaim, and Rabbi Yehuda Alcalay who were among the heralds of Zionism; Hasidic rebbes of various dynasties and Rabbis of "Yishuv haYashan" (the old – pre-Zionist – Jewish settlement) together with Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, and his circle; Henrietta Szold, the founder of the Hadassah organization; the poet Else Lasker-Schüler, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of Modern Hebrew, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, the Nobel Laureate for Literature, and Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel School of Art; Israel's sixth Prime Minister Menachem Begin; the victims of the 1929 Arab riots and 1936–39 Arab revolt, the fallen from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, together with Jews of many generations in their diversity.
Rabbis and religious scholars Early modern period
Obadiah ben Abraham, the Bartenura (c. 1445 – c. 1515) Meir ben Judah Leib Poppers, Bohemian rabbi and kabbalist (c. 1624–1662) Judah he-Hasid (1660–1700), 17th-century immigration leader Ḥayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar, the Ohr ha-Ḥayyim (–1743) Abraham Gershon of Kitov (1701–1761), brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov Shalom Sharabi, the Rashash (1720–1777) Zundel Salant (1786–1866), rabbi and primary teacher of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter
Late 19th century onwards Elazar Abuchatzeira, rabbi and grandson of the Baba Sali Levi Yitzchok Bender, leader of the Breslov community in Uman and Jerusalem Avrohom Blumenkrantz, American Orthodox rabbi David Cohen (rabbi), the "Rav Ha-Nazir" Yehoshua Leib Diskin, rabbi in Brest (Belarus) and Jerusalem Shlomo Elyashiv, Lithuanian kabbalist Moshe Mordechai Epstein, rosh yeshivas Slabodka, Lithuania Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka Zerah Flegeltaub, rabbi of Jerusalem and Suwałki, Poland, son of Rabbi Shlomo Flegeltaub of Warsaw Yitzchok Dovid Groner, director of Yeshivah Centre, Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Shimon Hakham, Bukharian writer and translator of Jewish holy texts and stories in Judeo-Tajik Moshe Halberstam, rosh yeshivas Tschakava Yosef Hayyim, Baghdad-born rabbi and posek known as the Ben-Ish Hai (disputed) Yitzchok Hutner, rosh yeshivas Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, Brooklyn, New York Aryeh Kaplan, American Orthodox rabbi and author Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) first to hold Ashkenazi Chief Rabbinate of Israel position under British Mandatory Palestine. One of the fathers of Religious Zionism who founded Mercaz HaRav in 1924. Zvi Yehuda Kook, Rosh Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav Kook and son of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook Elyah Lopian, prominent rabbi of the Musar movement Avigdor Miller, American Orthodox rabbi, author and lecturer Shlomo Moussaieff, Bukharian family patriarch Yaakov Mutzafi, head of the Sephardi Edah HaHaredith, JerusalemGrave Information for Yaakov Mutzafi, Hebrew Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, rosh yeshivas Mir Yechezkel Sarna, rosh yeshivas Slabodka Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Ore Gedalia Schorr, rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Vodaas, Brooklyn, New York Sholom Schwadron, the "Maggid of Jerusalem" Dov Schwartzman, rosh yeshiva Yeshivas Bais HaTalmud, Jerusalem Avraham Shapira, rosh yeshivas Mercaz HaRav Kook Gedaliah Silverstone, rabbi in Belfast and Washington, D.C. Yaakov Chaim Sofer, the Kaf Hachaim Ahron Soloveichik, rosh yeshivas Brisk, Chicago, Illinois Pesach Stein, rosh yeshivas Telz, Cleveland, Ohio Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss, head of the Edah HaChareidis, Jerusalem
Hasidic Rebbes Simcha Bunim Alter, fifth Gerrer rebbe Yisrael Alter, fourth Gerrer rebbe Moshe Biderman, Lelover rebbe Mordechai Shlomo Friedman, Boyaner rebbe of New York City Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, second Bostoner rebbeBostoner Rebbe Levi Yitzhak Horowitz dies at 88. Jerusalem Post, December 6, 2009. Maiden of Ludmir, female Hasidic rebbe Yechiel Yehoshua Rabinowicz, Biala Rebbe Meir Halachmi, Toldot Hachasidut b'Erets Yisrael, vol.2, pp. 73–83, Beit Biala David Matityahu Rabinowicz, the "Laheves David", Biala Rebbe and son of Rebbe Yechiel Yehoshua Isamar Rosenbaum, Nadvorna rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub, Modzitzer rebbe
Chief Rabbis Solomon Eliezer Alfandari, Chief Rabbi of Damascus and Safed Meir Auerbach, first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem