The Mount of Olives (Har Hazeitim in Hebrew) in Jerusalem has been used as a Jewish cemetery for more than 3,000 years. Approximately 150,000 Jewish people are buried there including some of the greatest Jewish leaders, prophets, and rabbis of all time. Thus the Mount of Olives is by far the largest and most important Jewish cemetery in the world.
The Mount of Olives is also central to Christians: several key events in the life of Jesus as related in the Gospels took place there, including the description in the Book of Acts 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 the Eastern Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants. It is home to significant sites including: Church of All Nations, Garden of Gethsemane and the Russian Orthodox Church of Maria Magdalene.
But the Mount of Olives is also at the heart of the dispute for Israeli sovereignty, as well as the Jewish People’s tradition, history and our most sacred real estate.
The Mount/cemetery is involved in the territorial dispute between Israel and the Muslim nations as well as the Palestinian-Arabs because Islam rejects Jewish sovereignty and Arabism rejects Zionism. So in addition to being a functioning cemetery and site of pilgrimages, the Mount of Olives is also a place where daily Palestinian-Arabs commit physical attacks, rock throwings and firebombings, terrorizing Jewish mourners and visitors, impeding burials thus forcing relatives to miss the funerals for their loved ones, and destroy gravesites. Moreover, the Palestinian Arabs have demanded that Israel withdraw from/give up control over the Mount of Olives, claiming it is part of their “occupied territory.”
Some background: The Mount of Olives is one of three peaks of a mountain ridge which extends 2.2 miles just east of and adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City including the Temple Mount, and across the Kidron Valley, in the area called the Valley of Josaphat.
Mount Scopus is the northern peak at 2,710 feet, Mount of Corruption is the southern peak at 2,451 feet. The ridge acts as a watershed, and its eastern side is the beginning of the Judean Desert. It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes. The southern part of the Mount was the necropolis of the ancient Judean kingdom.
The Mount of Olives is mentioned in the visions of the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah. Jewish tradition relates that the beginning of the resurrection process will take place on the Mount at the end of days. Many Jews believe that those buried on the mount will be the first to arise for everlasting life with the coming of the Messiah. The Jews of Jerusalem customarily sent soil from the Mount of Olives in bags to Jewish communities in the Diaspora, and Jews outside of Israel would spread this soil on the graves of their beloved. In sum, it has been a religious and historic shrine for Israel and the Jewish People for thousands of years.
From 1948-1967, when Jordan illegally controlled eastern Jerusalem, Jewish access and the continued burial of Jews on the Mount was prohibited, despite Jordan’s explicit commitment in the Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Agreement of 1949. Moreover, the Jordanians destroyed and desecrated the cemetery, and 38,000 of its tombstones and graves were smashed and/or used for making of latrines and roadways.
Since Israel reunified Jerusalem in 1967 as a result of the Six-Day War, burial ceremonies have renewed and large sections of the cemetery were rehabilitated. Israel also guarantees free access to all for religious purposes- something the Muslim-dominated Arabs did not do.