Tradition has it that when the resurrection comes, it will begin at this holiest of Jewish burial sites, which has been in use for more than 3,000 years. Packed with sand-hued tombs, the Mount of Olives looks over Jerusalem to the west and the desert to the east. It is the resting place of rabbis, Christian prophets, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin—and it has recently been running out of space.
The Mount of Olives is one of three peaks of a mountain ridge which runs for 3.5 kilometres east of and adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City. It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes. The southern part of the Mount was the Silwan necropolis, attributed to the ancient Judean kingdom. The mount has been used as a Jewish cemetery for over 3,000 years and holds approximately 150,000 graves, making it central in the tradition of Jewish cemeteries. Several key events in the life of Jesus, as related in the Gospels, took place on the Mount of Olives, and in the Acts of the Apostles, it is described as the place from which Jesus ascended to heaven. Because of its association with both Jesus and Mary, the Mount has been a site of Christian worship since ancient times and is today a major site of pilgrimage for Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants.
Much of the top of the hill is occupied by At-Tur, also the highest point at 818 m (2,684 ft), a former village and now a neighbourhood of East Jerusalem with a majority-Muslim population.
From Biblical times until the present, Jews have been buried on the Mount of Olives. The necropolis on the southern ridge, the location of the modern village of Silwan, was the burial place of Jerusalem’s most important citizens in the period of the Biblical kings.
The religious ceremony marking the start of a new month was held on the Mount of Olives in the days of the Second Temple. Roman soldiers from the 10th Legion camped on the mount during the Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews celebrated the festival of Sukkot on the Mount of Olives. They made pilgrimages to the Mount of Olives because it was 80 meters higher than the Temple Mount and offered a panoramic view of the Temple site. It became a traditional place for lamenting the Temple’s destruction, especially on Tisha B’Av. In 1481, an Italian Jewish pilgrim, Rabbi Meshullam da Volterra, wrote: “And all the community of Jews, every year, goes up to Mount Zion on the day of Tisha B’Av to fast and mourn, and from there they move down along Yoshafat Valley and up to Mount of Olives. From there they see the whole Temple (the Temple Mount) and there they weep and lament the destruction of this House.” In the mid-1850s, the villagers of Silwan were paid £100 annually by the Jews in an effort to prevent the desecration of graves on the mount.
Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin asked to be buried on the Mount of Olives near the grave of Etzel member Meir Feinstein, rather than at Mount Herzl national cemetery.
Status since 1948
The armistice agreement signed by Israel and Jordan following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War called for the establishment of a Special Committee to negotiate developments including “free access to the holy sites and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives”. However, during the 19 years the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank lasted, the committee was not formed. Non-Israeli Christian pilgrims were allowed to visit the Mount, but Jews of all countries and most non-Jewish Israeli citizens were barred from entering Jordan and therefore were unable to travel to the area.
By the end of 1949, and throughout the Jordanian rule of the site, some Arab residents uprooted tombstones and plowed the land in the cemeteries, and an estimated 38,000 tombstones were damaged in total. During this period, four roads were paved through the cemeteries, in the process destroying graves including those of famous persons. Jordan’s King Hussein permitted the construction of the Intercontinental Hotel at the summit of the Mount of Olives together with a road that cut through the cemetery which destroyed hundreds of Jewish graves, some from the First Temple Period. Graves were also demolished for parking lots and a filling station and were used in latrines at a Jordanian Army barracks.The United Nations did not condemn the Jordanian government for these actions.
Following the 1967 Six-Day War and the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, its government began restoration work and re-opened the cemetery for burials. Israel’s 1980 unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem was condemned as a violation of international law and ruled null and void by the UN Security Council in UNSC Resolution 478.
Recent Events.
As of 2010, the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives has been targeted regularly by Arab vandals. Mourners have been assaulted. Notable graves that have been defaced by vandals include those of the Gerrer Rebbe and Menachem Begin.
On 6 November 2010, an international watch committee was set up by Diaspora Jews to reverse the desecration of the Jewish cemetery. According to one of the founders, the initiative was triggered by witnessing tombstones that were wrecked with “the kind of maliciousness that defies the imagination.”
