The Cemetery on the Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives
From the English-language section of the Mount of Olives website:

The ancient and most important cemetery in Jerusalem is on the Mount of Olives. The Mount was used a burial ground of the Jews of Jerusalem from as far back as the days of the First Temple, and continues to fulfil this function to the present day. During the First and Second Temple Periods the Jews of Jerusalem were buried in burial caves scattered on the slopes of the Mount, and from the 16th century the cemetery began to take its present shape. Many famous names are buried in the cemetery such as the Ohr ha-Chaim, Rabbi Chaim Ibn Attar and Rabbi Yehuda Alcalay who were among the heralds of Zionism; Hassidic rebbes of various dynasties and Rabbis of "Hayeshuv Hayashan" (the old – pre-Zionist - Jewish settlement) together with Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, the first Askenazi Chief Rabbi, and his circle; Henrietta Szold, the founder of the Hadassah Organization and the poetess, Elza Lasker-Schiller, Eliezer ben Yehudah, the father of Modern Hebrew, Sh. Y. Agnon, the Nobel Laureate for Literature, and Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel School of Art; Israel's sixth Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, the victims of the 1929 and 1936-39 Arab riots, the fallen from the 1948 War of Independence, together with Jews of all generations in all their diversity.

The Jewish people lost all access to the cemetery during the nineteen years of Jordanian occupation and that period saw much destruction of the tombstones. Since its liberation in 1967, there have been sporadic efforts to restore order and many people replaced their relatives' stones. Although most Jerusalem burials are on the newer Har Hamenuhot, the Mount of Olives has become an option once again. But security and safety concerns continued and newly-smashed tombstones were all to common.

I have been there many times and have helped several people find their relatives' graves and on several occasions assisted in setting new tombstones. I described two of those projects here and here.

Looking west from the top of the Mount of Olives

In recent years, the various Jerusalem burial societies, The City of David and Ir David Foundation and other bodies have led to something of a rebirth of the cemetery. Repairs to the tombstones and pathways, a bit of signage, increased security, an Information Center and a growing website, database and search engine have made the ancient cemetery more friendly. Someone not familiar with the area will still have to do his best to find the right section and then phone the Information Center or the relevant burial society to get specific directions.

A view towards the east from maybe half way up

David's great-grandfather
My high school class set up a website a few years ago in preparation for our xxx-ieth reunion and from time to time people still post about their doings. Sunday of last week, Jacquelin Bazell Majek - whom I did not really know though we were in  the same homeroom - posted something about finding her family in census records. I put in my two cents and soon David Slavkin joined the conversation. He and I had a few classes together and I mentioned that I had seen several of his family members' graves in Anshe Labovitz cemetery when I was there looking for some family from Schedrin three and a half years ago.

One thing led to another and he told me that his great-grandfather Yitzhak Hillel Slawkin left Pittsburgh for Jerusalem and was buried on the Mount of Olives sometime in 1936. Monday morning I found the grave in the Mt. of Olives database and was able to tell David his great-grandfather's father's name and date of death. He had died on 26 Shevat which fell in 1936 on 19 February - the same date I found the information.

At first, I had found only a Dora Slavkin but when I looked at alternate spellings, I found him as the Hebrew equivalent of Slawkin. The database included a map which showed Yitzhak Hillel's grave in a section I know well, one which caters largely to Americans who either lived in Jerusalem or were brought to Israel for burial.

I told David that I would visit the grave the following Monday, which was today.

Max' great-geat-grandfather
In the course of mentioning this discovery on Facebook, Max Heffler, a genealogy colleague who, like me, has family from Galicia, said that he too has a great-grandfather buried on the Mt of Olives - one that he had not been able to find. He wrote:

Joel Zlot died bf 1927 in Jerusalem (Eliezer haLevi) son of Gelman.

That is about all I know except for a few aliases: Yael Slot, Slote, Ivel, Iovel, Evel, Yechiel, Refoel Jeiel, Rfoel Jeiel, Josel, Yoel, Yosef, Rfoel Jesel, Yovel & Yale

My cousin ... has not been successful in locating the grave

I searched the database and found nothing, so emailed the Information Center and asked

for help. The person on the other end turned out to be Aharon Epstein, the son of my friend and fellow Pittsburgher Varda Epstein. Aharon did some more exotic searches and came up with "Rafael Yoel the son of Shemuel Helman who died in 1916." They had "Helman" as the surname, where Max was using the Russian equivalent Gelman as a given name.  No mention of "Zlot."

(NOTE: some of the information that Aharon gave me was based on information provided by MyHeritage.)

Visiting the graves

This morning, I ignored the light rain and went up to the cemetery. I did not find the Slawkin grave right away so I phoned Aharon. During the ten minutes it took him to return my call, I found the grave, right up against the wall next to the largest landmark in the area.

The database had described the grave as "neglected" but it looked pretty good to me.

P"N (Here is buried)
This great man
Prominent and venerable
R' Yitzhak Hillel
ben R' Zalman Moshe z"l
Slawkin
Shohet and inspector from Pittsburgh
PA America
died 26 Shevat 5696
Aged his 72nd year
May his soul be bound in life

Max' great-great-grandfather took me around and up towards the Intercontinental Hotel at the top of the mountain. Here I needed Aharon to get me into the correct section, but I worked my way down and found the grave itself even before he gave me the specific directions.

The grave has been repaired but the stone seems to be the original. 

Purim is coming later this week. As the old joke goes, they tried to kill us, G-d saved us, let's eat.

Leading into the month of Sivan

• Wednesday we celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem, forty-seven years ago.

• Thursday we say the Shelah's prayer for the spiritual and physical welfare of our children and grandchildren.

• Friday we bring in the month of Sivan. I shall be in Hevron.

Something about each.

The reunification of Jerusalem - 28 Iyyar
During the lifetimes of many of us, we were blessed to see the reunification of Jerusalem. During the nineteen year occupation of the Old City, the Mount of Olives and other significant places of Jewish heritage, the Jordanian Arabs destroyed synagogues, other buildings and grave sites, in addition to preventing Jews from approaching these places. (My apologies for the quality of these photos, particularly the ink that bled through.)

And the Kotel Plaza was not the great open space we recognize from the last forty-five years.  There was work to be done.

The archealogy on the southern end of the Temple Mount didn't appear ex-nihilo either.

 
There were the places where residents of the Old City has been murdered and buried in mass graves - in what was then and is now "the Jewish Quarter." As though there can be any other quarter.

 I have been using the word "reunification," not "liberation," for as long as we cannot go up to the Temple Mount, neither it nor we are liberated.

Above the Kotel on the right, the Chief Rabbinate says that it is forbidden to tread on the holy ground, even in the areas that clearly should not be forbidden. (We are reminded from time to time why the Law of Unintended Consequences is sometimes a good thing.)











But back then, we could get close enough to take pictures through windows that open onto the Temple Mount itself.

 

Whenever I took people into the Old City back then, we would stop and see how it had looked before the Six Day War. We could not get a better view than this.

A word about united Jerusalem vs what they write in the papers. We waited Thursday night at a stoplight up near French Hill. On the island waiting for the light to change, there were two hareidi boys, maybe ten years old, with their backpacks, no doubt on the way home from school. On the same island were three Arab men, forty-ish, probably also on their way home. Sharing the same small traffic island. No one thought a thing of it.

I heard a long interview last week with Steven Pressfield on his new book The Lion's Gate, about the Six Day War, with a great deal about the reunification of Jerusalem. Some lucky family member is going to get a copy from me.

I have written here and here about two non-family members who were buried on the Mount of Olives and whose graves were desecrated during the Jordanian occupation.

We also have a family member buried there - but not from that period. My wife's second cousin Sheila (Sarah Fruma) Goldson Weiner, born in Cincinnati, made aliyah with her husband and four children, had a fifth here in Jerusalem and died on Yom Yerushalayim thirty-four years ago. She was forty-one. I have lost count of her grandchildren, but there have been over thirty for some time. (Her husband is from Memphis and is related to a third cousin of mine who, last I knew, lived in Tuscaloosa.)

We pray for our children - 29 Iyyar
Rabbi Yeshayahu HaLevi Horowitz, born 1558 in Prague, served as a rabbi in a number of communities in Europe, eventually returning to Prague. After his wife died in 1620, he made aliyah to Jerusalem, where he wrote his seminal work "Shnei Luhot HaBerit" and he became known as the Shelah, the acronym of his book. This particular work - which was meant as instructions to his children - was published by his son some years after his 1630 death. The Shelah left Jerusalem after he and other community leaders were jailed for ransom, and lived in Zefat befiore moving to Teverya, where he died. He is buried in the same compound as the Rambam.

His prayer, which he instructed should be said on 29 Iyyar, the day before the beginning of Sivan, the month we receive the Torah, can be found (with translation) here.

Rosh Hodesh Sivan
We have three Pikholz yahrzeits on the first of Sivan, all buried here in Israel. Two are in Holon - one from Skalat and one, a Pikholz spouse, from Rozdol and this one on the right who lived in Efrat and is buried in Kefar Etzion.

I discussed Hevron here a couple of years ago, including its capture in the Six Day War by the Chief IDF Chaplain, Rav Shlomo Goren.

For a few years, before we moved to Jerusalem, Devir and I used to go to Hevron for a sunrise minyan every time Rosh Hodesh would fall on a Friday. Then for awhile we went every Rosh Hodesh.

Devir has been after me to go, as we have not been there is quite awhile and we plan to do so this week.

It will give me an opportunity to update my Hevron Cemetery website..

Houskeeping notes
The panel discussion I am participating in at the Conference in Salt Lake City has been moved to Monday at 4:45 PM.

My own talk is at 9 AM Wednesday and I have just learned that I have been assigned a room with a seating capacity of 480. Methinks someone is being optimistic. My good friend Renee Steinig has agreed to introduce me, as she did three years ago in Washington DC.

The Conference website has a link for a live stream of "Over 50 of the best conference programs," but they haven't announce which those would be. I don't know if being assigned a room for 480 people qualifies as "of the best." We'll find out. Registration for this is $149.