Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery, Jerusalem

The Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives, including the Silwan necropolis, is the most ancient and most important cemetery in Jerusalem. 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 about 70,000 tombs from various periods, including the tombs of famous figures in Jewish history.

History

In the 19th century special significance was attached to Jewish cemeteries in Jerusalem, since they were the last meeting place not only of Jerusalemites but also of Jews from all over the world. Over the years, many Jews in their old age came to Jerusalem in order to live out the rest of their lives there and to be buried in its holy soil.

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 Jewish tradition, it is here that the Resurrection of the Dead would begin once Messiah will appear on the Mount of Olives and head toward the Temple Mount.

Many famous names 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 poetess Else Lasker-Schüler, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda the father of Modern Hebrew, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, the Nobel Laureate for Literature, 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 War of Independence, together with Jews of many generations in their diversity.

Notable graves

Rabbis and religious scholars Rishonim

• Nahmanides, the Ramban
• Obadiah ben Abraham, the Bartenura

Acharonim

• Ḥayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar, the Ohr ha-Ḥayyim
• Yosef Hayyim, Baghdad-born rabbi and posek known as the Ben-Ish Hai
• Shalom Sharabi, the Rashash
• Yaakov Chaim Sofer, the Kaf Hachaim

Rabbis

• 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
• Yehoshua Leib Diskin, rabbi in Brisk 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 Suwalki, Poland, son of Rabbi Shlomo Flegeltaub of Warsaw
• Abraham Gershon of Kitov, brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov
• Shimon Hakham, Bukharian writer and translator of Jewish holy texts and stories in Judeo-Tajik
• Moshe Halberstam, rosh yeshivas Tschakava
• Yitzchok Hutner, rosh yeshivas Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, Brooklyn, New York
• Judah he-Hasid, 17th-century immigration leader
• Aryeh Kaplan, American Orthodox rabbi and author
• Zvi Yehuda Kook, rosh yeshivas Mercaz HaRav Kook
• Avigdor Miller, American Orthodox rabbi, author and lecturer
• Shlomo Moussaieff, Bukharian family patriarch
• Meir ben Judah Leib Poppers, Bohemian rabbi and kabbalist
• Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, rosh yeshivas Mir
• Zundel Salant, rabbi and primary teacher of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter
• 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.
• Ahron Soloveichik, rosh yeshivas Brisk, Chicago, Illinois
• Pesach Stein, rosh yeshivas Telz, Cleveland, Ohio
• Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss, head of the Edah HaChareidis, Jerusalem
• Yitzchok Dovid Groner, director of Yeshivah Centre, Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

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 rebbe
• Yosef Leifer, first Pittsburger rebbe
• Maiden of Ludmir, female Hasidic rebbe
• Yechiel Yehoshua Rabinowicz, Shedlitser rebbe
• Issamar 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
• Chaim Berlin, Chief Rabbi of Moscow
• Haim Douek, Chief Rabbi of Egypt
• Jacob Saul Elyashar, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Ottoman Palestine
• Shlomo Goren, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
• Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, London
• Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine
• Jacob Meir, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine
• Meyer Rosenbaum, Chief Rabbi of Cuba
• Shmuel Salant, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem
• Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem
• Isser Yehuda Unterman, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel

Businesspeople

• Harry Fischel, American Jewish businessman and philanthropist
• Robert Maxwell, British media magnate and supporter of Israel
• George Weidenfeld, British Jewish businessman and philanthropist

Cultural figures

• Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer
• Nissim Behar, pioneer of Modern Hebrew education
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew
• Israel Dov Frumkin, Israeli journalist
• Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet and journalist
• Yossele Rosenblatt, hazzan and composer
• Else Lasker-Schüler, German-Jewish poet
• Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel School in Jerusalem
• Ephraim Urbach, Israeli scholar

Political figures

• Judah Alkalai, precursor of political Zionism
• Moshe Barazani, Lehi fighter
• Menahem Begin, Israeli prime minister
• Israel Eldad, Revisionist Zionist philosopher and fighter
• Meir Feinstein, Irgun fighter
• Jacob Israël de Haan, Dutch Jewish journalist assassinated by the Haganah
• Moshe Hirsch, leader of Neturei Karta
• Ida Silverman, Jewish philanthropist, speaker, and Zionist fund-raiser
• Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America

Terror victims

• Eliyahu Asheri, Israeli terror victim
• Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, terror victims

Christians

• Boedil Thurgotsdatter, medieval Danish queen
• Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem