Mount of Olives
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The Mount of Olives (also Mount Olivet, Hebrew: הר הזיתים, Har HaZeitim; Arabic: جبل الزيتون, الطور, Jebel ez-Zeitun, Jebel et-Tur, "Mount of the Summit") is a mountain ridge to the east of Jerusalem. It is named from the olive trees with which its sides are clothed. At the foot of the mountain is the Gardens of Gethsemane where Jesus stayed in Jerusalem, according to tradition. The Mount of Olives is the site of many important Biblical events. Roman soldiers from the 10th Legion camped on the Mount during the Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD, which lead to the destruction of the city.
In the Book of Zechariah the Mount of Olives is identified as the place from which God will begin to redeem the dead at the end of days. For this reason, Jews have always sought to be buried on the mountain, and from Biblical times to the present day the mountain has been used as a cemetery for the Jews of Jerusalem. There are an estimated 150,000 graves on the Mount, including those of many famous figures such as Zechariah (who prophesied there), Yad Avshalom, and a host of great rabbis from the 15th to the 20th centuries including Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel.
Major damage was suffered while the Mount was occupied by Jordan between the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and 1967, with Jordanians using the gravestones from the cemetery for construction of roads and army latrines, including gravestones from millennia-old graves. After the Six-Day War, the Israelis painstakingly repatriated as many of the surviving gravestones as possible. The modern neighbourhood of A-Tur is located on the mountain's summit.
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[edit] Biblical references
The Mount of Olives is first mentioned in connection with David's flight from Jerusalem through the rebellion of Absalom (2 Samuel 15:30), and is only once again mentioned in the Old Testament, in Zechariah 14:4. It is, however, frequently alluded to (I Kings 11:7; II Kings 23:13; Nehemiah 8:15; Ezekiel 11:23).
It is frequently mentioned in the New Testament (Matthew 21:1;26:30, etc.). The road from Jerusalem to Bethany runs over the mount as it did in Biblical times. According to the Bible, it was on this mount that Jesus stood when he wept over Jerusalem.
Jesus is said to have spent a good deal of time on the mount, teaching and prophesying to his disciples (Matthew 24-25), returning after each day to rest (Luke 21:37), and also coming there on the night of his betrayal (Matthew 26:39). This mount, or rather mountain range, has four summits or peaks: (1) the "Galilee" peak, so called from a tradition that the angels stood here when they spoke to the disciples (Acts 1:11); (2) the "Mount of Ascension," the supposed site of that event, which was, however, somewhere probably nearer Bethany (Luke 24:51, 52); (3) the "Prophets," from the catacombs on its side, called "the prophets' tombs;" and (4) the "Mount of Corruption," so called because of the "high places" erected there by Solomon for the idolatrous worship of his foreign wives (I Kings 11:7; II Kings 23:13).
The Mount of Olives is also the site of the prophecy of Zechariah and Ezekiel's theophany.
This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.
[edit] Image Gallery
 The spraling ancient Jewish cemetery |
 Tomb of Zechariah and of the Hezir family |
[edit] Notable sites located on the mount
- Yad Avshalom
- Tomb of Zechariah
- Church of all Nations
- Church of Maria Magdalene
- Dominus Flevit Church
- Gethsemane
- Mary's Tomb
- Seven Arches Hotel
[edit] Notable people buried on the mount
- Abraham Isaac Kook (1864-1935); Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine; founder of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav.
- Ahron Soloveichik (1917-2001); Rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Brisk, Chicago.
- Aryeh Kaplan (1934-1983); Rabbi, noted author of The Living Torah and other works.
- Avigdor Miller (1908-2001); Profound American thinker and lecturer of Orthodox Judaism; communal rabbi and Mashgiach ruchani.
- Ben Ish Chai (1832-1909); Leading hakham, posek and kabbalist.
- Chaim ibn Attar (1696-1743); Prominent talmudist, kabbalist and author.
- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922); Linguist.
- Gabriel A. Shrem (1916-1986); Chief cantor of the Sephardic Syrian Jewish Community in New York.
- Immanuel Jakobovits (1921-1999); Chief rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
- Meir ben Judah Leib Poppers (1624-1662); Bohemian rabbi and kabbalist.
- Meir Feinstein (1927-1947); Irgun activist.
- Menahem Begin (1913-1992); Prime minister of Israel.
- Moshe Biderman (1776-1851); Hassidic rabbi.
- Moshe Halberstam (1932-2006); Rosh yeshivah of the Tschakava yeshivah and prominent Dayan of the Edah Charedis.
- Pesach Stein (1918-2002); Rosh yeshiva of Telz yeshiva.
- Princess Alice of Battenberg (1885-1969); Mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
- Robert Maxwell (1923-1991); British media proprietor.
- Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub (1886-1947); Second Modzitzer Rebbe; composer. (He was the last person to buried on the Mount of Olives until it was liberated in 1967). His son, Rebbe Shmuel Eliyahu, the third Modzitzer Rebbe, was buried there in 1984; and his grandson, Rebbe Yisrael Dan, the fourth Modzitzer Rebbe, was buried there in 2006; both graves are in close proximity to his.
- Shlomo Goren (1917-1994); Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel and author.
- Shmuel Salant (1816-1909); Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Jerusalem and a renowned talmudist.
- Uri Zvi Greenberg (1896-1981); Poet.
- Yechezkel Sarna (1890-1969); Rosh yeshiva of Slabodka yeshiva.
- Yechiel Yehoshua Rabinowicz (1900-1981); Grand Rabbi of the Biala hasidic dynasty.
- Yisrael Eldad (1910-1996); Activist, philosopher.
- Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss (1902-1989); Prominent talmudic scholar, Posek and chief Rabbi of the Edah Charedis.
- Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld (1849-1932); Co-founder of the Edah Charedis in Jerusalem and its first chief rabbi.
- Zundel Salant (1786-1866); Prominent rabbi.
- Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891-1982); Leader of the Mizrachi movement in Israel and Rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav.
[edit] Trivia
Gabriel Shehebar 1914-1998
[edit] External links
- Mount of Olives Hotel - An affordable family-run hotel situated at the summit of the Mount of Olives, next door to the Chapel of Ascension.
- Detailed historical and spiritual history of the Mount from a Jewish perspective
- Jerusalem Photo Portal - Mount of Olives
- Picture slide show of Mount Olivet
- Mount of Olives - Photos and information
