Mount Herzl

Mount Herzl
Mount Herzl
Har Herzl
Highest point
Elevation	834 m (2,736 ft)
Listing	Judaean Mountains
Coordinates	31°46′26″N 35°10′50″E / 31.77389°N 35.18056°E
Geography
Location	1 Herzl Boulevard, Jerusalem

Mount Herzl National Cemetery
	Mount Herzl National military and police cemetery
Details
Established	1948
Location	Herzl Boulevard, Jerusalem
Country	Israel
Type	Public and Military
Find a Grave	Findagrave

Mount Herzl (Hebrew: הר הרצל, romanized: Har Herzl or הר הזכרון, Har HaZikaron, 'Mount of Remembrance'), is the national cemetery of Israel in Jerusalem. It is named for Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism. It contains Yad Vashem, Israel's main Holocaust museum, the National Military and Police cemetery, and the National Civil Cemetery of the State of Israel.

Mount of Remembrance

The Mount of Remembrance is the western summit of Mount Herzl. It is 806 meters above sea level. It is called Mount of Remembrance in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Yad Vashem museum is on the top of the mountain.

Mount Herzl Plaza is the main ceremonial space in Mount Herzl. It is used for the Israeli Independence Day ceremony every year. The grave of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism in on the northern side of the plaza.

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is the national Holocaust museum of Israel. The museum includes the International School for Holocaust Studies, the International Institute for Holocaust Research, the Valley of the Destroyed Communities, the Hall of Names, and the Righteous Among the Nations Memorial Path.

The memorial path tells the story of the birth of the state of Israel, from the beginning of the Zionism until the declaration of the state. The path runs from the national Civil Cemetery to Yad Vashem. The path was designed by the architect Uri Abramson and was built by Israeli youth organizations in 2003.

The memorial path includes a Memorial for the Last of Kin a memorial site for Jews who had survived the Holocaust and later died in the 1948 Arab–Israeli war without a family. The monument was built in 2004 by the sculptor Micha Ullman in two parts. One part is a board with a shape of a roof with names. The second part is a sculpture of a fallen house.

An annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony is held at Yad Vashem

National Civil Cemetery

The National Civil Cemetery of the State of Israel on the southern slope of Mount Herzl is for the graves leaders and important public persons of the state of Israel. Several past leaders of Israel are buried in the Great Leaders' Plot Hebrew: חלקת גדולי האומה, romanized: helkat gdolei ha'uma, lit. 'section of the nation's great people'), including past presidents Zalman Shazarand Chaim Herzogand Prime Misisters Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yitzhak Shamir.

Garden of the Nations

The Garden of the Nations is a public garden. Each olive tree in the garden was planted by a visiting foreign leader and each tree has a plaque with the name of the leader who planted it.

Herzl Museum and Educational Centre

The Herzl Museum is a biographical museum. It tells the story of Theodor Herzl and his vision to create a Zionist country. The museum opened in 2005.

The Mount Herzl Center is next to the Herzl Museum. It opened in 2013. It teaches about Israel's history and Zionism. There is a small memorial garden to Norman Herzl next to the study center.

Victims of Acts of Terror Memorial

The Victims of Acts of Terror Memorial is the main memorial for all victims of terrorism in Israel from 1851 until today. The Memorial was opened in 1997, and every year, a ceremony is held on the plaza of the memorial.

Aliyah Bet Graves and Memorials

The Beta Israel Memorial is dedicated to the Ethiopian Jews, known as Beta Israel, that were murdered on their way to Israel. It was built in 2007 by the architect Gabriel Curtis. It replaced an earlier memorial that was built in 1989 in Jerusalem.

Mount Herzl also has memorials to those who died making the Aliyah Bet aboard the ships Salvador and Egoz.

Monument to those drowned in the sinking of the Egoz.
Monument to the victims of the sinking of the Salvador.
Mass grave of 223 Jews who drowned in the sinking of the Salvador.

National Military and Police Cemetery

The military and police cemetaries are on the northern slope of Mt. Herzl. The main Israel Defense Forces cemetery includes memorials to members of the IDF who died line of duty.

The cemetary also contains memorial gardens to people who fought for the pre-Zionist state.

There are sections for Jewish Parachutists of Mandate of Palestine, the Olei Hagardom, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War}, the 1969-1970 War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Lebanon War and the 2006 Lebanon War.

Mass grave of soldiers in 1948 war section
Graves of the seven Jewish Parachutists of Mandatory Palestine
Olei Hagardom graves

The Israel Police cemetery is for police officers who have died in the line of duty. Former police commissioners Pinhas Kopel, Shaul Rosolio, and Haim Tavori are buried here.

SS Erinpura Memorial

This memorial honours the 140 Jewish soldiers of the British Army 462 Transport Company who were lost when a German attack sank the SS Erinpura, a merchant vessel transporting troops from Alexandrina to Malta. The memorial includes concrete covered with stones in a corner of a pool with the names of the dead.

A ceremony to the fallen soldiers takes place in during Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Kaf Gimel Yordei HaSira

The 23 Seamens' (Hebrew: כ"ג יורדי הסירה, romanized: kaf gimel yordei hasira) memorial is dedicated to a group of commandoes who died at sea in 1941. They were members of the Palmach, a paramilitary group in Palestine. Operation Boatswain was a mission to damage Vichy French oil refineries in Tripoli, Lebanon. The mission failed, and the bodies of the fighters were never found. The memorial is next to the Garden of the Missing in Action. The memorial was built with exposed concrete in a shape of boat in a corner of a pool of water. The stone has the names of the 23 fighters, and that of an observing British officer who was lost with them.

Garden of the Missing

The Garden of the Missing in Action is dedicated to people who went missing in action so that their burial place is unknown. There are empty graves there that represent missing soldiers and officers who have fought in the Israeli Defense Forces. The names of people hwo have gone missing since 1914 are carved on a memorial wall. An annual Seventh of Adar ceremony for fallen soldiers whose resting place is unknown, held in Garden of the Missing.

INS Dakar

The INS Dakar Memorial is dedicated to the 69 sailors of the Israeli Navy submarine Dakar who died in the Mediterranean Sea in 1969^[1].It is made of exposed concrete in a shape of a submarine; the lower half is submerged in the ground. On the front is a verse from the Bible, Psalms 77:20 "Your way went through the sea, your path through the turbulent waters; but your footsteps could not be traced." Inside the memorial is a room with the names of names of all of men who went down with the Dakar.^[2]

Memorials for Jewish Soldiers in World War II

The memorial for the Jewish soldiers in the Soviet army in was built in 1989. The memorial is a wall with pink stones and red stones. It has the number "200,000" for the number of Jewish soldiers of the Russian army who died in the war. There is a Hebrew Bible verse inscribed from Judges 3:2 "This [war] was only so that the generations of Isra’el who had previously known nothing of war might learn about it."^[2]

The memorial for Jewish soldiers in the Polish army in World War II was built next to the Soviet memorial in 1998, from pink stones with the symbols of the Polish army and the inscription of the years 1939-1945 next to stairs going to ceremonial plaza. It is inscribed with a Bible verse from 2 Samuel 1:23 "they were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions."^[2]

Memorial for Jewish soldiers in the Polish army in World War II
Memorial for Jewish soldiers in the Soviet army in World War II

Memorial for the defenders of the Old City of Jerusalem

This memorial, in the shape of an alley, is at the entrance to the Garden of the Missing in Action. It is dedicated to the Israeli soldiers who fought for the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.^[2] It is inscribed with two verses from the Bible: Jeremiah 31:8 "I am gathering [the people of Israel] from the far ends of the earth" and Isaiah 66:14, "your bodies will flourish like newly sprouted grass."

National Memorial Hall

The National Memorial Hall For Israel's Fallen (Hebrew: היכל הזיכרון הממלכתי לחללי מערכות ישראל) is a memorial to all Israeli casualties of war since 1860. It opened on 30 April 2017.

In the center of the hall, there is an eternal flame dedicated to the unknown soldiers of Israel.

Ancient burial cave

The Tomb of Nicanor, an ancient Jewish burial cave from the Second Temple period was found in the military cemetery in 1954. Architect Asher Hiram designed a new entrance for the cave, so it is included in the cemetery.

References

↑ Staff, C. I. E. (28 May 2023). "Submarine Dakar Found After 3 Decades". CIE. Retrieved 30 December 2025.
1 2 3 4 Bar-Am, Aviva; Bar-Am, Shmuel (12 January 2013). "'But when the sun rises, no one knows where they are'". The Times of Israel. The Times of Israel. Retrieved 29 December 2025.

Other websites

[1] Staff, C. I. E. (28 May 2023). "Submarine Dakar Found After 3 Decades". CIE. Retrieved 30 December 2025.

[sun-2] 1 2 3 4 Bar-Am, Aviva; Bar-Am, Shmuel (12 January 2013). "'But when the sun rises, no one knows where they are'". The Times of Israel. The Times of Israel. Retrieved 29 December 2025.

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