+Israel-©-MEA-20180214-(N741)-Historical-Icons-of-Israel–Graveyard-Mt Olives
Historical Icons of Israel –Graveyard on the Mount of Olives
The Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives is the most ancient and most important cemetery in Jerusalem and also the largest and holiest cemetery in the Jewish world. Burial on the Mount of Olives started some 3,000 years ago in the First Temple Period, and continues to this day. The cemetery contains anywhere between 70,000 and 2-to-300,000 tombs from various periods, including the tombs of famous figures in Jewish history. During the time of the First and Second Temples, the Mount of Olives was the place where the high priest would sacrifice a ‘Red Cow’ and then take the purified ashes from the Temple across to the Mount of Olives where they would be used to purify all those who were impure.
It is the final resting place of well-known Jewish people such as: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a Hebrew lexicographer and newspaper editor and driving force behind the revival of the modern Hebrew language; Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in the British Palestine Mandate; Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro (Bartenura), a 15th-century Italian, best known for his commentary on the Mishnah, and in his later years, rejuvenated the Jewish community of Jerusalem and became recognised as the spiritual leader of the Jews of his generation; Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel (also known as Judah the Pious), a legendary and scholarly 12th century German rabbi who made some astonishing and specific predictions about the future of Jerusalem and Israel, which came true; and Rabbi Yehosef Schwartz, who published the first Jewish geographical maps of Palestine since the 14th Century.
From the 10th Century B.C.E., 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. After the Six Day War of June 1967, interment ceremonies were held in the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives for the civilians and soldiers who were residents of the Old City of Jerusalem and killed during the 1948 War of Independence.
The Jewish cemetery on Mount Scopus “Mount of the Watchmen/Sentinels“ was divided in two by the highway leading to Jericho. West of this highway is 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 to build the Jordanian Legion Camp which was confirmed by a group of Israeli Army chaplains and members of the Jerusalem Chevra Kadisha (Religious Burial Society) who inspected the camp site. Nearly the entire camp was built with tombstones carted from the cemetery and used for the main parade ground, roads, buildings and even the lavatory structure. Inscriptions were still visible on the desecrated stones and efforts are being made to trace the location of the graves and replace the stones.
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