Mount Herzl - Definition and Overview

Tomb of Theodor Herzl at the top of Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Israel. Hebrew spells HERZL.

Mount Herzl, in Hebrew Har Hertzel, is a high hill-top in Jerusalem, Israel that is named for, and is the final resting place of, Theodor Herzl, considered to be the founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl's tomb lies at the top of the hill.

It is also the burial place of three of Israel's prime ministers:

• Levi Eshkol who lead Israel during its Six Day War victory in 1967,

• Israel's first and only woman prime minister Golda Meir

• Israel's only assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Other prominent leaders such as Zeev Jabotinsky and Israel's deceased presidents are also buried at this place.

Israel's main military cemetery is located in the area around Mount Herzl.

It is a place that is generally venerated by modern Israelis, and is the focal point of commemorative and celebratory proceedings related to the State of Israel. It is officially described:

"In 1903 Theodor Herzl wrote in his will: "I wish to be buried in a metal coffin next to my father, and to remain there until the Jewish people will transfer my remains to Eretz Israel. The coffins of my father, my sister Pauline, and of my close relatives who will have died until then will also be transferred there." Herzl died a year later and was interred in Vienna. Forty-five years later, in 1949, Herzl's remains and those of his relatives were brought to Israel and reinterred in a burial site in Jerusalem, whose location had been determined by a special state commission. Sixty-three entries were submitted in the competition for the design of the national pantheon. Joseph Klarwein's proposal was chosen, and the site was accordingly laid out in 1951. From then on, Mount Herzl has served as the national cemetery, where Zionist leaders, the presidents of Israel, prime ministers, and Speakers of the Knesset are laid to rest. On the northern slope of Mount Herzl is the military cemetery of Jerusalem, and to the west is Yad Vashem, which commemorates the Holocaust. These three sites together comprise Har Hazikaron (the Mount of Memory)... To the east rises the Mount of Olives, where Jews have been buried for the past three thousand years. Between these two poles, two other peaks mark the Jerusalem skyline: Mount Moriah, the religious focal point of the city, where the Temple stood; and Givat Ram, Israel's center of government...The tour of Mount Herzl is a visit to a cemetery and a memorial site." [1] (http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/english/sys/tour/vir_tour/show/show_tour.asp?tour_id=119)