The Largest and Holiest Jewish Cemetery: Zionist Figures on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem Israel

Information about the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Israel itself will be provided after this announcement. Unfortunately, I have not been able to work as a tour guide because of the war.

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The largest and holiest cemetery in the Jewish world, containing some 70,000 graves, is the Jewish cemetery located on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. It is the final resting place of well-known figures such as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro (Bartenura), Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid (Rabbi Judah the Pious) and Holy Land scholars Rabbi Yehosef Schwartz and Samuel Klein.

West of this highway one can find the earliest section of the cemetery, which stretches as far as the tombstones of the Kidron Valley. The newer section is located on the western and southern slopes of the Mount of Olives. The entire cemetery is divided into sections, each section belonging to a different Jewish community or sect. During the period of Jordanian rule, the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives suffered extensive damage. Many of the headstones were removed and used by the Jordanian army. Since the Six Day War, major reconstruction work has been carried out on the cemetery, and the highway passing through the cemetery in the southern part of the Mount of Olives has been closed.

There are many Jewish folk traditions about the virtues of being buried on the Mount of Olives: Those who are buried there will be the first to be resurrected on the Day of the Resurrection of the Dead, they will be exempt from the torment of having to roll their bodies to the Holy Land along subterranean tunnels, their bodies will not be consumed by maggots and Elijah the Prophet will blow the shofar (ram’s horn) on the Mount of Olives to declare the Day of the Resurrection of the Dead, etc.

The Jews began to bury their dead on the Mount of Olives, which was ideally suited for this function because it was relatively close to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and because it was for the most part uninhabited. In the wake of the development of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, various traditions in praise of the cemetery’s location sprouted and Jewish pilgrims would take dirt from the Mount of Olives in order to spread it on the graves of their loved ones buried overseas because they believed that, by doing so, they would enable the deceased to be immediately part of the Day of the Resurrection of the Dead.

Early networks of graves have been discovered on the Mount of Olives, primarily on its southern and western slopes. These are, for the most part, the elaborately fashioned tombstones of important individuals who were most likely buried there because of the Mount of Olives’ proximity to the Temple Mount and the Temple itself. Some scholars also point out two basic features that rendered the Mount of Olives an ideal place for a Jewish cemetery serving the residents of Jerusalem: the Mount of Olives’ oceanic sedimentary rock dating from the Late Cretaceous period and the Mount of Olives’ location in the eastern part of Jerusalem. The latter factor prevented foul odors from being wafted into the city. Perhaps this is the reason why one finds very few graves in the western part of Jerusalem: The winds usually blow into Jerusalem from the west. Another factor behind the selection of the Mount of Olives as the site for a Jewish cemetery is its topographical nature, particularly on its western slopes, which was not, generally speaking, suitable for human habitation and which ruled out this area as a potential site for Jerusalem’s expansion.