New view from Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives (Har Hazeitim) in Jerusalem is the site of the world’s oldest and most venerated Jewish cemetery. Overlooking the Temple Mount across the Kidron Valley, it was mentioned by the prophets in the Tanach, has served as a sacred Jewish graveyard for more than 3,000 years and is traditionally considered a harbinger of the Messianic era.

In May 2010, then-State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss issued a scathing report detailing the cemetery’s deterioration, warning that it was in a sad state of disrepair. Har Hazeitim had become plagued by vandalism, stone-throwing and criminal activity, largely by local Arabs. The violence not only made visits dangerous but also hindered preservation and restoration efforts.

Jeff Daube, who made aliyah from the United States in 2007 and has served since 2010 as Israel’s representative to the International Committee for Har Hazeitim (ICHH), told JNS that the situation has dramatically improved in recent years.

Construction of the Visitor Education Center is already underway, with a cornerstone ceremony planned for February 2026.

The center will feature an amphitheater on the roof, a synagogue, a seminar room, and a research library, all overlooking the Temple Mount and the Kidron Valley — where, tradition holds, the High Priest once passed after preparing the holy ashes of the red heifer. The facility will also enhance existing Memorial Day services for Israel’s fallen soldiers.

Among those interred on the Mount of Olives are some of the most revered figures in Jewish history: the daughter of Pharaoh, wife of King Solomon; the prophets Haggai, Malachi, Zechariah and Hulda; and modern luminaries including Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his wife, Aliza, Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (the grandfather of Israeli President Isaac Herzog), Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, Chaim ibn Attar (known as Or ha-Hayyim) and Nobel laureate Shai Agnon. Some burial caves date back to the Second Temple period.

“Even the so-called ‘B- and C-listers’ have extraordinary stories,” said Daube, pointing to the 228 lone soldiers who survived the Holocaust and later fell defending Jerusalem in Israel’s War of Independence.

To preserve and share those stories, the center will feature interactive exhibits, including augmented-reality tours and QR codes placed throughout the cemetery, telling the histories of those buried there.

For donor Pnina Graff, whose family has generations buried at Har Hazeitim, the ICHH project is deeply personal. “My husband’s great-grandmother, Gruna Taxon, was buried there in the 1930s,” she said. “She made aliyah not from Europe, but from America, because America wasn’t religious enough.”

“Our visitor center is the first Jewish construction there in 2,000 years,” Graff told JNS. “Aside from the historical and archeological significance, it is also of strategic significance.”