from Israel Studies Volume 1, Number 2

Mount Herzl: The Creation of Israel's National Cemetery

Maoz Azaryahu

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Permeated with the transcendent, the cemetery at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem is a place where the encounter between the living and the dead is socially organized and culturally regulated within the framework of tradition. As hallowed premises, the cemetery lies outside of the realm of the mundane, yet it is firmly incorporated into societal space and temporal rhythms of the community. The national cemetery of the modern nation-state pertains to the officially promoted cult of national figures who loom prominently in national history and whose celebrated virtues encapsulate the fundamental values of the national community. The founder of a Greek city was often buried inside the city, even though Greek custom required that the living be spatially separated from the dead.1 The cult of modern founders-e.g., Lenin in the USSR, Ata Turk in Turkey, Mao Tse Tung in China, or Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam-was concretized in terms of their respective mausoleums in the national capitals. The Pantheon of the French Republic was conceived as a shrine of the nation and its grandeur in terms of the Great Men of French history. Arlington, near Washington DC, is an illustrious example of a cemetery that, situated in the national capital, is dedicated as the burial place of outstanding national figures. As a national institution that is permeated with historical myth and political symbolism, the Arlington national cemetery serves as "an effective device for promoting the statist mystique."2

Pregnant with mythic qualities, a national cemetery is an official memorial space. As a multitude of studies have demonstrated, memorial spaces participate in the production of a sense of shared sense history. Pertaining to the politics of national identity, their construction features prominently during ethnic revivals and in nation-building procedures.3 Hegemonial forces in society utilize memorializations to consolidate and legitimate their dominance, which makes memorials into an instrument of power and authority. At the same time the meaning of official commemorations is often evaluated in terms of patriotic tradition. Memorial spaces concretize historical heritage in terms of location. As a conflation of history and geography, they fuse myth and landscape, while their construction and ritual operation celebrates a specific interpretation of history. As a prime text of the National Narrative, the thematic structure of a national cemetery pertains to its architectural design and ceremonial functions. The spatial organization of the gravesites produces well-defined contextual references, specifies status hierarchies, and implies historical progressions. Being a text of national history, however, should not obscure the fact that a national cemetery is historically constructed in a process that is comprised of both its conception and development as a site of burial and its ceremonial functions.

A most intriguing phenomenon in the cultural history of Jewish national revival has been the reinterpretation of the sacred (hitherto elaborated upon in an exclusively religious framework of interpretation) in distinctly historical, and hence secular-national, terms. Traditionally, Jewish sacred places in the Land of Israel (with the exception of the Western Wall, a relic of the second Temple in Jerusalem) included alleged graves of Biblical figures and Talmudic sages. With the progress of the Zionist enterprise, a new type of Jewish sacred places emerged that celebrated and evinced Jewish heroism and Zionist martyrdom. Prior to the establishment of the state, Tel-Hai, and later Masada, emerged as prominent constituents of Zionist sacred topography.4 While the evocative power of Masada emanated from the dramatic qualities of its story and the extraordinary local landscape, the power of Tel-Hai as a place was also linked to the mythic qualities assigned to the grave of the martyrs, most prominent among which is Yosef Trumpeldor, in the nearby cemetery of Kfar Giladi. The sculptured tombstone, which was inaugurated in 1934, became a prominent icon of Zionist heroism. Following the Israeli War of Independence, Zionist sacred topography was extended to include war memorials and military cemeteries designed also to evince and celebrate the heroic sacrifice of the fallen soldiers.5 Of prime significance in this context was the construction of the national cemetery on Mount Herzl in western Jerusalem.

Infused with the Zionist myth of national revival and restoration, and embedded into the symbolic fabric of Israeli independence, Mount Herzl assumed a distinguished place in the emerging sacred topography of Israeli nationhood. The elaboration on the construction of Mount Herzl focuses upon three distinct processes, whose spatial convergence eventually produced the national cemetery as a coherent memorial space permeated with Zionist meanings. The first was the reinterment of Herzl, the founding father of modern Zionism, on a hilltop in western Jerusalem, and the subsequent reinterment in the vicinity of Herzl's gravesite of Zionist leaders of the pre-State period who had been buried outside of Israel. The second was the construction a military cemetery for the fallen soldiers in Israeli wars on the slopes of this hill. The third procedure was the allocation of a special plot for the burial of Israeli national designated the "Greats of the Nation."

FOUNDING FATHERS

Herzl

The first stage in the history of the national cemetery at Mount Herzl was the initiative to bury Herzl in Jerusalem. Already in December 1948, toward the end of the Israeli War of Independence, it was decided to transfer the remains of Herzl from Vienna, where he had been buried since his death in 1904, to the newly founded State of Israel. The transfer was legitimated by a specific request made by Herzl in his will, yet it was also culturally anchored in the Biblical rendition of the specific request of Jacob and Joseph that their bones be transferred from Egypt and buried in the Cave of Machpella in Hebron.6 According to a popular view, the reinterment of Herzl in the Land of Israel was a moral obligation. In 1927, for example, a pupil in a Tel-Aviv school related her impression of a visit to the cemetery. In the context of her visit to the tombs of Nordau and Ahad Aha'am, she also noted: "And it seems that I see beside them Dr. Herzl whose bones rest in a foreign land."7 In a letter to the daily newspaper Davar, a reader articulated his anger that Herzl had not yet been reinterred in the Land of Israel.8

The issue had been on the official Zionist agenda since the 1930s. In 1935, a special committee on behalf of the Zionist executive concluded that "Herzl's last resting place should be in Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, and that, furthermore, both national sentiment and the political, national, and historical moment make Jerusalem the only choice."9 After the foundation of Israel, the reinterment of Herzl in Israel acquired additional meaning as a demonstration of the triumph of Herzl's vision.10 Celebrated as a token of honor to the founding father of modern Zionism, the reinterment of Herzl in Israel also belonged to the construction of the symbolic foundations of Israeli nationhood. The reinterment of Herzl was meant to concretize the Zionist ethos in terms of a sacred place and to support, through the myth of the founding father, the legitimacy of the state as the fulfillment of Herzl's vision.

In December 1948, a special committee was set up to implement the reinterment of Herzl in Israel. The members of this committee represented the state and the Zionist World Organization. The committee reaffirmed the choice of Jerusalem, even though Tel-Aviv, Haifa, and even Herzliya, competed for the right to be the last resting place of Herzl.11 On 21 December 1948, a formal decision in favor of Jerusalem was made.12 At this point in time, the political status of Jerusalem was not yet clear, and the decision should also be understood in the context of the attempt to assert Israel's claim over the part of the divided city it administratively and militarily controlled. In this respect, the reinterment of Herzl in Jerusalem was also intended to enhance Jerusalem as a national capital, even though no definitive claim had yet been made at this stage. According to a public announcement of the Jewish Agency, "it is clear and self evident that the resting place of the creator of the idea of the Jewish state is in the capital of the state";13 the prevailing notion was that "Herzl's tomb in Jerusalem obliges" making Jerusalem into a national capital.14

The committee in charge examined eight different options for the location of the burial place.15 The idea to bury Herzl in an existing cemetery, "among fellow Jews," was dismissed. Two criteria seemed crucial in the eyes of the members of the search committee: Jewish ownership of the burial grounds, and security considerations-i.e., the vulnerability of the selected site to shelling from enemy positions around Jewish Jerusalem. The importance assigned to security was a result of the siege of Jerusalem and the shelling of the city. The final decision was made in Spring 1949 in favor of the barren hilltop near Bait Vagan, at the western approaches to west Jerusalem.16 This decision was promoted by Yosef Weitz of the Jewish National Fund, who was involved in the project from the beginning, and his dedication was later acknowledged by a memorial plaque at the entrance to the civilian part of the cemetery. The practical issue of accessibility played a role, too; yet the major merit of this specific location was its topographical dominance and the panoramic view it afforded:

The Hilltop, rising 834 meters above sea level, is the highest point in Jerusalem. It gives a view of the greater part of Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the neighborhood . . . The hill also provides a view of the hills of Judaea, the hills of Ephraim, the Hebron hills and the hills of Moab across the Jordan. It excels in the beauty of its landscape and is very suitable for further development and planning.17
The Reinterment Ceremony

The initial intention was to conduct the reinterment ceremony in February 1949 in order for it to coincide with the gathering of the constitutive assembly (then in Jerusalem). Another option was Pesach18; yet, with the passage of these suggested deadlines, the general anticipation was that the reinterment ceremony would take place on Herzl Day, the anniversary of his death, which had traditionally been an important element of the Zionist calendar.19 In 1949, however, Herzl Day was proclaimed as Army Day, and the main public event of the day was a military parade in Tel-Aviv.20 The reinterment ceremony finally took place on 18 August 1949. As was apparent from views expressed in the Hebrew press, both the fact that the reinterment did not take place on Herzl Day and the decision of the authorities in charge to restrict the participation of the public were a cause for disappointment.21

The first state funeral in Israeli history,22 the burial ceremony also marked the sanctification of the burial site.23 The hill, hitherto possessing no Hebrew name, was officially designated "Mount Herzl."24 The notion of the tomb as the epicenter of Israeli nationhood was symbolically reinforced during the reinterment ceremony, when representatives of the settlements poured bags of earth from their settlements into the open grave. This ritual act of offering evinced not only the convergence of vision/visionary and implementation, but also made the grave a symbol of the territorial unity of the land and the figurative focal point of the settlement project in which the vision and its implementation symbolically converged.

Site of Pilgrimage

The evocative power of Herzl's grave was associated with the symbolic power emanating from the physical remains of the visionary. As one commentator later put it, its attraction was incomparably greater than that of the "Herzl Streets" and other similar toponymic commemorations common in the Zionist landscape.25 Six thousand invited guests attended the burial ceremony at Mount Herzl; popular sentiments of awe and reverence were articulated in the form of pilgrimage to the gravesite. According to a press report published three days after the reinterment ceremony, tens of thousands had already visited the gravesite.26 A few months later, it was apparent that the site was still attractive to the public. According to an estimation made two weeks after the reinterment ceremony, the number of visitors amounted to a thousand a day during the week and a substantially larger number on weekends.27 The influx of visitors to the gravesite persisted, with a visit at the grave being part of the itinerary of the visit to Jerusalem of school children and army groups.28 The burial site also became a tourist attraction. In this, capacity it provided a significant contribution to the otherwise unattractive tourist landscape of Western Jerusalem.

A report that appeared in Herut (the organ of the Herut Party) a few days after the reinterment ceremony lamented the absence of a guard of honor at the burial site, which according to the interpretation of this opposition newspaper, signified "neglect on the side of the authorities."29 In response to a request of the Jewish Agency, the army agreed to position a military guard of honor at the site,30 but a few weeks later, the local military command withdrew its consent.31 Ben-Gurion recommended the construction of a committee to determine rules of conduct at the place and the physical features of the area.32 The refusal of the police to supervise the site prompted those in charge of it to suggest the setting up of a special guard, designated the "Herzl Guard," or the "Visionary's Guard."33 Furthermore, those in charge of the site attempted to design signs that would be positioned in the vicinity of the gravesite and would eventually prevent "unwanted phenomena, a sense of lawlessness and the desecration of the Sabbath."34

Design and Form

The first coordinated step toward the architectural development of the burial area was made only at the end of November 1949, and this only after reports about the measure of neglect at the site were made public.35 According to the agreement between the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Jewish Agency, the JNF would take care of the development of the area, while the Jewish Agency would be in charge of placing a temporary gravestone.36 In April 1950, a significant administrative step was taken when the government decided to participate in a board of trustees for the site, thus making the site and its operation a joint venture of the state and the Zionist Organization.37 In July 1952, an "implementation committee" was set up to supervise the construction of the tombstone, comprised of representatives of the government and the Zionist Organization. 38

Prior to the reinterment of Herzl, the prevailing view was a tomb in the form of either an impressive monument or a mausoleum, in accordance with the greatness of the hero: "Later on, a mausoleum, befitting this great leader, will be erected on the grave and will be visible from all parts of Jerusalem and its surroundings."39 Yet, when the guidelines for the design of the tomb were formally announced in the framework of the Herzl Memorial Competition, which was officially proclaimed on 11 September 1950, the initial quest for monumentality gave way to the demand for simplicity and modesty, as appropriate to "a popular movement as the Zionist movement and a young state which struggles for its establishment and [is engaged] in [the task of] ingathering the exiles."40 The architectural design of the tomb should further "be an expression of sentiments of respect and admiration of the people of Israel towards Herzl" and "be incorporated into the historical landscape and context of Jerusalem, the city of the kings and the residence of prophecy." The participants in the public contest for the architectural design of Herzl's tomb were required to take into account the restrictions set by Jewish tradition with regard to figurative representations.41

The interim solution was found in the form of a flat, horizontal gravestone with Herzl's name inscribed upon it. As the guidelines specifically stated, the architectural design had to facilitate a flat gravestone on the burial place. The design that won the public contest was proposed by the architect Klarwein (the architect of the Knesset building). Independently, Yosef Weitz proposed erecting a vault above the grave.42 Though in accordance with the popular quest for a tomb in the form of a mausoleum, there were doubts about the merit of this structure in terms of taste. In a letter sent to the custodians of the site, an Israeli citizen explained his reservations: "The danger is that the tent will be built over the grave. The terrible danger is that instead of the atmosphere of sacredness that prevails now because of the beauty of the landscape and the greatness evoked by the simple stone plate on the grave of the visionary of the Jewish state, a vault will be built that will spoil everything."43

The objections to the building of the vault44 and the pressure set by the 1960 centenary of Herzl's birth, celebrated in Israel as "Herzl Year," had the effect that the vault was never built. The final shape of the tomb was that of a 16-ton rectangular of basalt on the side of which the name "Herzl" was inscribed in gold letters.45 As requested in the architectural contest, this form signified simplicity and modesty. Interestingly, the question of whether additional biographical details should be added to the inscription was still being debated only a few weeks before the unveiling of the tomb.46 The consecration of the tomb during the inauguration ceremony was also enacted by laying stones brought from every Jewish settlement in Israel by representatives in an act that reaffirmed the function of the grave as the sacred epicenter of the national territory.47

The original plan was to plant trees at the area of the grave in order "to beautify the permanent resting place of Herzl's mortal remains in Jerusalem."48 As the guidelines for the architectural design of the tomb at Mount Herzl specified, the conception of the site was that of a public park. A symbolically laden initiative was to plant cedars in the park, thereby evoking the memory of the cedar (actually a cypress) planted by Herzl in Arza during his 1898 visit to Jerusalem. This idea was supported by Yosef Weitz from the Jewish National Fund, who was personally committed to, and institutionally involved in, the planning and development of the site.49 While the construction of the permanent structure of the tomb was delayed, the development of the area was carried out, and the barren hilltop was transformed into a park.50

An additional element in making the site into a shrine to Herzl was the construction of a small museum. While the gravesite was permeated with the mythic, the museum bore witness to Herzl as an historical figure. The main part of the museum comprised Herzl's original workroom. The artifacts on display (e.g., his hat and desk) exuded authenticity and supplemented the mythic with the authority of historical "facts." In this sense, the (relative) eloquence of the museum complemented the severe and laconic message of the gravesite. Originally established as a "Herzl room" in 1938 on the premises of the National Institutions (the Zionist headquarters) in Jerusalem, it was relocated for the occasion of the ceremonial inauguration of the tomb on the 100th anniversary of Herzl's birth in 1960.51 The site at the entrance to the premises of Mount Herzl, at a considerable distance from Herzl's tomb, ensured the mutually uninterrupted functioning of the two foci of Herzl's remembrance within the course of a visit to the place.

Commemorative Ceremonies

As a substantial contribution to the symbolic landscape of western Jerusalem, the gravesite played a ceremonial role in the framework of the making of Jerusalem as a national capital. At the beginning of December 1949, a mass demonstration was invoked in Jerusalem as a protest against the intention of the UN to separate Jerusalem from the realm of Israeli sovereignty. Significantly, the dramatic climax of the officially organized "oath of allegiance" to Jerusalem took place at Mount Herzl, proclaiming Zionist commitment to Jerusalem in terms of both place and historical legacy. The ceremonial utilization of Mount Herzl as a political statement was also evident a few weeks later, where the Gadna, the paramilitary youth brigades, organized a Hanukah celebration at Mount Herzl to mark both the festival of Jewish heroism and the decision to move the government to Jerusalem.52 The political significance assigned to this ceremony was also emphasized by the presence of the Prime Minister and a guard of honor of the various branches of the army.

Conducted on 21 December 1949, the celebration of Hanukah at Mount Herzl was designed as the final stage of the "beacons of heroism" race. The idea was that beacons, previously lit in different places that represented an historical geography of national heroism (e.g., Tel-Hai, Degania, Yehiam, Tirat Zvi, Negba, Modiin, and battlefields in and around Jerusalem), were transferred to Mount Herzl, where they were used to kindle the Hanukah lamp especially built for this purpose. The Masekhet [the drama text of the ceremony], written especially for the occasion, elaborated on the specific heroic stories of each place.53 The ritual narrative was that of Mount Herzl as the place of symbolic fusion and a generator of unity. The confluence of heroic fire at Mount Herzl provided for the fusion of geographical space and historical time in terms of Mount Herzl as the symbolic center of national revival and Zionist restoration. The special emphasis upon Jerusalem was evinced in the fact that five beacons represented battle sites directly related to the battle over Jerusalem.

The obvious ceremonial aspect of Herzl's gravesite at Mount Herzl was its function as the ceremonial commemorative locus of Kaf Be'Tamuz, the anniversary of Herzl's death.54 The World Zionist Organization prohibited the giving of speeches during public events held at the site.55 Such a restriction was meant to sustain the meaning of the gravesite as a national institution, but it substantially reduced the possibility of the site being integrated into structures of Israeli civil culture other than those instituted by the World Zionist Organization or the state. The fact that it was heavily imbued with Zionist meaning, however, prompted the use of the site as the setting for the opening ceremony of Independence Day, which eventually secured and sustained the place of Herzl's gravesite in the symbolic matrix of Israeli nationhood.

This ceremony was conducted for the first time in 1950, when it consisted of a pilgrimage of 2,000 members of the Gadna to the tomb. The location provided a substantial element to the symbolic message of the ceremony. The ritual also included the kindling of a torch by the speaker of the Knesset, which was followed by the lighting of 1,000 torches by the attending youth.56 In 1951, the lighting of beacons was again a conspicuous element of the ritual. As the crux of the ritual drama, the kindling of beacons symbolically evinced the transition from servitude to independence as the transition from darkness to light, a traditional Jewish metaphor for the redemptive process.

In 1952, the ceremony, redesigned and elaborated as a state act, was already referred to as a "tradition." The most important element of the revised ceremony was the kindling of 12 beacons by representatives of settlements and different countries of origin. A symbolic re-enactment of the historical drama of the birth of the State of Israel, the ceremony served as a reaffirmation of the original agreement between the nation and the visionary, where the symbolic presence of the founding father is a structured element of the ceremonial text. Rich in symbolic meanings, the opening ceremony was designed as a ritual performance of patriotic commitment and national unity which reproduced in symbolic terms the unity of history, territory, and community in a celebration of the revived nation.57

The opening ceremony of Independence Day at Mount Herzl was a state act; yet, its conduct needed the formal approval of the World Zionist Organization. In 1951, the committee in charge of the ceremony decided that it would not be open to the public, and only invited guests would attend.58 The reason was of a practical nature: the physical features of the gravesite did not facilitate a mass gathering. The transmission of this ceremony on the radio, and from 1969 on national television, was a compromise solution. The inappropriateness of the gravesite for public events prompted those in charge of the opening ceremony to maintain that the adjustment of the square for public events was of the highest priority.59 Subsequently, while Shlomo Arazi, in charge of the Independence Day opening ceremony on behalf of the state, demanded that the outer square should remain open, the architect and the representatives of the WZO, whose interest was focused upon the tomb and its surroundings, maintained that this square should rather function as "an appropriate interim space leading to the gravesite."60

Jabotinsky

Though shadowed by the dramatic impact of the reinterment of Herzl, the reinterment of David Wolfsohn, Herzl's successor as the head of the Zionist Organization, was on the agenda as well. Practical preparations in this direction were initiated in March 1951.61 Subsequently, the government decided to allocate an appropriate area at Mount Herzl for the interment of "other leaders of the Zionist movement."62 The case of Zeev Jabotinsky, the founding father of revisionist Zionism who had been buried in 1940 in New York, was a highly sensitive issue because of Labor Zionism's political enmity toward the man and his ideas. In his will, Jabotinsky requested that his and his wife's remains be reinterred in Israel only when initiated by the government of a Jewish state. Ben-Gurion, whose objection was the main obstacle to the reinterment of Jabotinsky in Israel, maintained that only Herzl and Rothschild (who was reinterred in Zikhron Yaacov in 1954) were worthy of a state-organized reinterment.63 Things changed after Ben-Gurion left office in 1963. Supported by Levi Eshkol, the new Prime Minister, the government decided on 15 March 1963 to enable the reinterment of Jabotinsky in Israel. The formulation, however, was vague in its elaboration of the measure of government responsibility for, and involvement in, the procedure. Finally, on 2 April 1964, the government explicitly stated that the reinterment was according to an official directive, and so the terms of Jabotinsky's will were fulfilled.

While the reinterment of Herzl was a joint production of the World Zionist Organization and the government, the reinterment of Jabotinsky and his wife were formally a matter of the family. The ceremony included an elaborate procession of the coffins that began at Lod airport, continued to Tel-Aviv and Ramat-Gan, and finally to Jerusalem, where the burial service at Mount Herzl was held on 9 July 1964. Bags of earth from Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives were placed into the grave together with similar bags taken from different gravesites; e.g., those of Sarah Ahronson (Zikhron Yaacov), Trumpeldor (Tel-Hai), and various martyrs of the Irgun (the underground movements associated with revisionist Zionism), which together defined a particular sacred geography of heroic sacrifice. By comparison, the similar ritual act conducted during the burial of Herzl was intended as a metaphorical transfusion of meanings pertaining to the settlement project. The funeral of Jabotinsky reproduced the history of the revisionist movement in geographically formulated ritual terms and celebrated it as a legitimate version of the National Narrative. Further, it was a ritual of national reconciliation because of the recognition thus rendered on behalf of the state to Jabotinsky as a legitimate Zionist hero. Formally, state agencies were not directly involved in the organization, yet the presence of the President and all members of the government at the burial service implied its being a state act. Significantly the Prime Minister, on a state visit to France, was absent.

The reinterment of Zeev Jabotinsky on Mount Herzl in 1964 had a substantial impact on the local landscape of the national cemetery. During a visit to Mount Herzl, the representative of the Prime Minister's office proposed three options. The option favored by those in charge of the operation "Zeev Jabotinsky returns to his homeland" was a plot situated at the main entrance road to Herzl's tomb. Located south of the Herzl tomb, the burial grounds were between it and the buildings of Yad Vashem at Mount Remembrance [Har Ha'Zikaron], with a pine wood separating Jabotinsky's family grave from the Holocaust memorial.64 For the committee in charge of the reinterment of Jabotinsky, the symbolic statement implied by the topographical affiliation of the family grave with both the Holocaust memorial and Herzl's tomb was a significant virtue. The preparation of the gravesite and its development were assigned to the planning committee for Mount Herzl, while the inscription on the gravestones, according to local tradition, detailed only names, and place and date of birth and death.65 The position of the family grave at a separate plot and the spatial exclusiveness thus guaranteed, evinced and celebrated the historical significance accorded to him in the Zionist pantheon on Mount Herzl.66 (See Fig. 1 and 2).

The Military Cemetery

The decision to locate the military cemetery of Jerusalem at the slopes of Mount Herzl was made in the Summer of 1949. In the wake of the War of Independence, the Department for the Commemoration of Fallen Soldiers was entrusted with the construction of military cemeteries. The site in Jerusalem was conceived as a local cemetery for soldiers who had fallen in and about Jerusalem in the War of Independence. The search for a burial grounds was urgent, since the area of Sheik Bader, where 250 fallen soldiers had temporarily been buried during the fighting, was designated as the future government compound. In mid-1949, the head of the Department for the Commemoration of the Fallen (DCF) in the Defense Ministry approached the Jewish National Fund [Keren Kayemet] with the request to allocate an appropriate area for this purpose. In the course of the search for appropriate grounds it became clear that the northern slopes of Mount Herzl provided the best area available with regard to both accessibility and size, the two parameters that dominated the evaluation of the different options. The plan to build the military cemetery on the slopes of the hill was made public by Yosef Weitz during a tour of the area a few weeks before the reinterment ceremony and the formal dedication of Mount Herzl as the gravesite of the Zionist visionary.67

The symbolic implications of the spatial adjacency to Herzl tomb were immediately recognized by Y. Dekel, the head of the DCF: ". . . on one hill will be the tomb of the creator of the Zionist vision and the cemetery of the implementers of Zionism."68 From the outset, however, it was clear that the civilian and the military plots were to be distinguished in the local landscape and properly separated by a planted wood. Further, the DCF ensured that the building of the military cemetery would not interfere with the planning and construction of Herzl's gravesite.69 The mutual independence of the parts was also articulated and facilitated by the separate entrances; however, the symbolic implications of its location in Jerusalem and of its immediate proximity to Herzl's tomb at Mount Herzl contributed to the decision that, "The cemetery in Jerusalem on Mount Herzl will in the future be the central, national cemetery of the Israel Defense Forces and all those for whom it has been decided to transfer from the Diaspora will probably be reinterred in this cemetery. [Further] the monument to those missing in action will be erected in this cemetery . . ."70 The military part of Mount Herzl was dedicated in the Fall of 1949 with the reinterment of soldiers who had fallen in the battlefields in and around Jerusalem during the War of Independence. Among the ideas raised in the early history of the military cemetery was the building of a "hall of heroism" for the fallen soldiers of the War of Independence. As a monumental museum, this institution was intended to preserve and document the memory of the fallen.71 By virtue of its representative functions, the building of the military cemetery at Mount Herzl proceeded rapidly compared to other military cemeteries under construction.72

The design of gravestones, which was the same for all military cemeteries, emphasized the place of the military cemetery at Mount Herzl within the national network of military cemeteries and military burial areas within civilian cemeteries that emerged in the 1950s. Built on the slopes of a hill, however, the structure of terraces distinguished the architecture of this particular cemetery from other military cemeteries. Conceived originally as the final resting place for the fallen of the Israeli war of Independence, the burial area was later extended to include the fallen of later Israeli wars. Spatially distinguished and historically structured, the various plots and terraces within the military cemetery formed its thematic structure as a narrative account of Israeli military history (see Fig. 3).

The representative status of the military cemetery at Mount Herzl was evinced by commemorative functions that distinguished it from other military burial grounds. Already in 1952, it was announced that a special plot would be dedicated to soldiers missing in action, where gravestones would provide symbolic substitutes for real graves.73 In 1957 a "memorial alley" was inaugurated to the memory of the fallen who had been buried in 1948 at the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. A monument was erected in memory of the 69 soldiers who were aboard the Dakar, the Israeli submarine that disappeared in the Mediterranean in 1968.

An important aspect of this special status was evident in the function of the military cemetery at Mount Herzl as a pantheon of the heroic sacrifice of the Jewish Yishuv in the struggle against Nazi Germany and its allies. In March 1950, Hannah Szenes, who had been sent to Hungary in 1944 to rescue Jews and was executed there by the Nazis, was reinterred at Mount Herzl in a state funeral. In 1951, a memorial was inaugurated to commemorate the "23 seafarers" who "went out to hit the Nazi enemy on the shores of Tripoli in Lebanon" in 1941 and never returned. In 1952, it was announced that a special plot had been built for the reinterment of the fallen of the Jewish Brigade buried in Italy. In 1985, a monument was constructed to honor the 140 soldiers of the Jewish Brigade who had been killed when their ship had been bombed by the Germans. The location of these commemorative edifices on the premises of the military cemetery at Mount Herzl introduced the struggle against Nazi Germany into the narrative structure of the military cemetery. Their contribution was also in their introduction of the theme of historical continuity from the pre-state heroic sacrifice of the Jewish Yishuv in the military struggle against Nazi Germany to the heroic sacrifice of soldiers of the IDF killed in the service of the Jewish State.

The ceremonial activities enacted at military cemeteries are focused upon fixed days of remembrance and the military funerals taking place there. The pilgrimage to the military cemetery on the Remembrance Day of the Fallen is a national rite that involves all military cemeteries and military burial plots throughout the country, and in this sense does not distinguish the site at Mount Herzl as a national center of the remembrance of the fallen. This is in accordance with the concept of essential equality between all fallen soldiers and, consequently, of their respective gravesites. Significantly, the opening ceremony of Remembrance Day for the fallen has been performed at the Western Wall (a tradition which was established for the first time in 1969) and not on the premises of the military part of Mount Herzl. Remembrance Day for those missing in action, however, is held at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in its capacity as the national locus of their official commemoration.

The "Greats of the Nation"

The third thing that determined the narrative structure of Mount Herzl as a national cemetery was the institution of a special burial area for those officially designated "the Greats of the Nation." These were the most distinguished Israeli office holders, mainly state presidents and prime ministers. The interment of the "Greats of the Nation" at the national cemetery was initiated and promoted by Ben-Gurion on the occasion of the death of Eliezer Kaplan, Israel's Finance Minister in July 1952. Ben-Gurion conveyed his intention to the official custodians of Herzl's tomb. Yosef Weitz rejected the idea with the argument that the decision had been that only heads of the World Zionist Organization would be buried there, but he suggested that a special burial plot be allocated for national dignitaries in the Jerusalem cemetery at Har Ha'Menuhot. Yosef Weitz related his dismay when, after it had appeared to all concerned that Ben-Gurion's initial request was off the agenda, the Israeli radio announced that indeed Kaplan would be buried at Mount Herzl "near the military cemetery." Weitz concluded sardonically that, "Ben Gurion found a way to maintain his will without consideration for others."74

The manner in which the burial of Kaplan at Mount Herzl was arranged made it clear that Ben-Gurion had a profound interest in the matter and that the burial of Kaplan was a pretext only. His primary motive was to integrate the history of the State of Israel, represented by the "Greats of the Nation," into the narrative structure of the national cemetery. Thematically, introducing the "Greats of the Nation" into the historical narrative of the national cemetery endorsed the interpretation of the pre-state, predominantly "Diaspora" history of Zionism as a mere introductory chapter to the political history of the State of Israel. This was in accordance with Ben-Gurion's notion that, following the establishment of the State of Israel, the World Zionist Organization had lost its previous relevance to the new state. Though not specifically elaborated in these terms, the refusal of the World Zionist Organization to allocate this plot and the manner in which Ben-Gurion forced his agenda seem to corroborate this interpretation.

Ben-Gurion was not only Prime Minister, but also Defense Minister, and the requested plot was finally allocated in the area of the military cemetery. Accordingly it was administered by the Defense Ministry and taken care of by the DCF as the agency in charge on behalf of the Defense Ministry. According to the agreement reached between Ben-Gurion and Berl Luker, the head of the Zionist Executive, the plot was situated between the military cemetery and Herzl's tomb (see Fig.4), even though the issue of the border between the military cemetery and the area of Herzl's gravesite was continuing to be negotiated between the trustees of Herzl's tomb and the government.75

The first to be buried in this plot, Eliezer Kaplan, Israel's first Finance Minister, was the only minister to buried there. The second notable to be given burial was Yosef Shprintzak, the first speaker of the Israeli Knesset. Though intended for national leaders, not all Israeli leaders were buried there. Chaim Weizmann, the first president of the State of Israel, was buried at his estate in Rehovot, having died in 1951 before a special plot for the "Greats of the Nation" was inaugurated. Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president, who died in 1962, was buried in Har Ha'Menuhot, the Jerusalem cemetery where ordinary Israeli citizens were buried, in accordance with Ben-Zvi's desire for a modest funeral. Ben-Gurion himself, who died in 1973, was buried in Sede-Boker in the Negev, in the vicinity of the kibbutz he had joined in 1953 and where he had resided after he had left office in 1963. Ironically, Ben-Gurion, who integrated the "Greats of the Nation" into the narrative structure of the national cemetery, preferred the Negev to Jerusalem as his final resting place, in accordance with his conception of the Negev as the ultimate Zionist vocation. Menachem Begin, who died in 1992, was buried in accordance with his will at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, in the vicinity of the graves of Ben-Shlomo and Barazani, two Irgun martyrs buried there.

On 6 November 1995, two days after his assassination, the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was laid to rest on Mount Herzl. The attendance of prominent world leaders at the funeral, among them the American President Bill Clinton, indicated the political significance assigned to it by the international community in the context of the Middle East peace process, of which Rabin had been a distinguished architect. The direct broadcast of the burial ceremony on major TV networks all over the globe not only underlined this significance, but also made Mount Herzl the focal point of world attention. The pilgrimage of Israelis to the gravesite following the funeral signified the profundity of national mourning for Rabin, as well as reaffirmed the relevance of Mount Herzl as a national institution. On the day following the funeral, hundreds of Israelis, including "youth and adults, religious and secular, families with small children and babies in baby-carriages" visited the gravesite, which was secured by 700 policemen.76 Masses of visitors reached the gravesite on the weekend, when it was estimated that the number of visitors was approximately a million and a quarter-the biggest influx ever of visitors to the national cemetery. One consequence of the mass pilgrimage was the revitalization of the cemetery premises in terms of visits. Thus, people also visited the hitherto relatively forgotten gravesites of other "Greats of the Nation" and the adjacent gravesites of fallen soldiers in the military cemetery.77

The dramatic impact of the assassination of Rabin infused his grave with extraordinary symbolic meaning as the national center of mourning and remembrance. As happened after the reinterment of Herzl, the pilgrimage to Rabin's gravesite included spontaneous visits by ordinary citizens as well as organized visits from classes and army groups. The act of pilgrimage consisted also of ritual activities, such as the kindling of memorial candles and, at least during the first weeks, many of the visitors left written messages at the gravesite addressed to fellow citizens or directly to Rabin, that, in their personal and spontaneous communications, substantially contributed to the transformation of the specific gravesite and the cemetery area in general into a shrine of mourning and remembrance.

THE WIDER CONTEXT:

The Western Wall, the Kirya, Yad Vashem

The national cemetery at Mount Herzl was intended to incorporate the Zionist myth of national revival and the concept of national restoration into the landscape of Jerusalem in its capacity as the (restored) capital. In this context, an important question is the relationship between Mount Herzl and other prominent national sites in Jerusalem and the manner in which the dynamic interplay of symbolic meanings thus generated pertains to the discourse of Israeli identity.

The Jewish Cemetery at the Mount of Olives

The Jewish cemetery on the slopes of the Mount of Olives was inaccessible to Jews when Mount Herzl was constructed. This cemetery represents the traditional version of Jewish redemption and is embedded in the Jewish system of eschatological beliefs. The national cemetery at Mount Herzl, on the other hand, presented the Zionist version of Jewish redemption as a national and historical process that culminates in the restoration of Jewish independence. Though a sign of social distinction, burial at the Mount of Olives was an individual matter. Interment on Mount Herzl, on the other hand, is reserved for national heroes only and is determined according to individual merit in the service of the Zionist cause.

The Western Wall

Mount Herzl is laden with Zionist meanings, while the Western Wall, as the relic of the Second Temple, evinces not only the destruction of Jewish independence, but was the focus of messianic yearnings that were formulated in terms of religious tradition. It is worth noting that almost no public reference was made to the Western Wall in the context of the dedication of Mount Herzl as a national cemetery. In his festive Knesset speech on the eve of Herzl's reinterment ceremony, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion provided a mapping of Jerusalem's topography of historical memory that included tombs of Judean kings and biblical prophets without mentioning the Western Wall, which, at that time, was in the Jordanian part of the divided city. However, the committee in charge of the architectural design of the gravesite specifically requested that a symbolic linkage between the tomb and the relic would be formulated in the spatial arrangement of the gravesites. This was evident in an answer given to an explicit question presented by a participant in the official contest for the design of Herzl's tomb:

Question: Are the tombs of Herzl's family and that of Wolfsohn (Herzl's successor as head of the Zionist movement) placed on an axis with the Western Wall? Answer: Herzl's tomb is placed on an axis with the Western Wall, and the other graves should be planned on the same axis.78
According to this answer, the spatial arrangement of the gravesites of Zionist leaders on Mount Herzl should include the notion of an east-west axis connecting the relic of the Second Temple and the tomb of the visionary of Zionist restoration. In a Zionist reading, the geographical separation between the Western Wall and the national cemetery on Mount Herzl corresponds to the historical progression from national destruction to national revival. In this framework of interpretation, the Western Wall represented the destruction of the Second temple, while Mount Herzl represented the construction of the Third temple-a term that in a secular-Zionist rhetoric designated the sovereign State of Israel.79

As long as the Western Wall was in the Jordanian part of Jerusalem and inaccessible to Jews, the relationship between it and Mount Herzl could only be formulated in symbolic terms. Things were dramatically changed after the 1967 War, when the Western Wall regained its traditional function as a national pilgrimage site. The decision made in 1969 to locate the opening ceremony of the Remembrance Day for the Fallen in the piazza in front of the Western Wall meant that the relic and its multitude of symbolic meanings was included in the thematic structure of the ceremony. The immediate message of selecting this specific location for a quintessentially patriotic ceremony was that the secular state had a special interest in interlacing the Western wall into the ritual fabric of Israeli secular nationhood. An unavoidable effect of this particular setting was that the ceremony was charged with the messianic meanings traditionally assigned to the Western Wall. In this respect, the question of whether the ceremony is infused with religious meanings formulated in terms of Jewish tradition, or whether the conduct of the patriotic ceremony there challenges these same meanings, depends on the ideological framework of interpretation.

The temporal proximity between the ceremony at the Western wall and the ceremony at Mount Herzl created by the immediate propinquity of Remembrance Day for the Fallen and Independence Day reinforces the notion that the two sites are closely related in the framework of Israeli patriotism. A different view-namely, that the two articulate a state of opposition, was also suggested by A.B. Yehoshua, a leading Israeli intellectual. In a short and original treatise, where he juxtaposed these two primary national sites in Jerusalem, Yehoshua suggested a secular reading of the relationship between them, according to which Mount Herzl and the Western Wall concretized in terms of sacred places two opposite ideological options. This polarization, he suggested, provided by "the Wall and the Mountain" was a fundamental element of the Israeli discourse on collective identity.80

Givat Ram

Functioning as the Israeli "Capitol Hill," Givat Ram, where Israel's government, Parliament [Knesset], and Supreme Court reside, defines the political-administrative center of Israeli statehood. The decision to transfer the government to Jerusalem, which was officially initiated at the beginning of 1950, demonstrated Israeli resolve to make Western Jerusalem the national capital. In the 1950s and early 1960s, construction of three ministerial buildings was begun: the Prime Office building, completed in 1962; the Knesset building, inaugurated in 1966 as the permanent residence of the Israeli Knesset; and, finally, the permanent residence of the Supreme Court, which was completed only in 1993.

For our purposes, it is the symbolic relationship between the virtual "Capitol Hill" at Givat Ram and Mount Herzl that matters. The Arlington National Cemetery, though located in Virginia and across the Potomac, is related to America's Capitol Hill in an exchange of symbolic meanings that is reinforced by their respective roles as the two geographical poles of the Mall and the historical monuments situated there.81 While Mount Herzl is invested with fundamental Zionist mythologies and belongs to the symbolic structures of Israeli nationhood, Givat Ram concretizes state authority and power in terms of place and architecture.

Though geographically separated and independent in their functioning, the symbolic meanings negotiated between Mount Herzl and Israel's "Capitol Hill" is a derivative of their respective meanings within a Zionist framework of interpretation, where the state is celebrated as the embodiment of national restoration. This effects an interplay of symbolic meanings: while Mount Herzl provides legitimacy to the national institutions that represent and evince Israeli independence, the national institutions reaffirm the validity and viability of the values evinced and celebrated by the national cemetery. The linking together of these two centers of Israeli nationhood is ritually manifest in the course of funerals of Israeli heads of state, Rabin's burial being a powerful demonstration of this procedure. On 6 November 1995, Rabin's funeral procession began at the Knesset, where the coffin had lain in state, and ended at Mount Herzl. The procession defined the symbolic relationship between Givat Ram and the Knesset in particular and Mount Herzl in terms of a ceremonial route that was invested with sacredness for the duration of the passage of the coffin.

Yad Vashem

Built in the 1950s in the vicinity of Mount Herzl on a hill officially designated Har Ha'Zikaron [Mount Remembrance], the Yad Vashem National Memorial Authority was conceived as the national center of Holocaust remembrance, study, and documentation. Approved by the Knesset in 1953, the building of the memorial center was a significant step in the gradual integration of the memory of the Holocaust into official Israeli culture (see the elaborate discussion in Young, 1993, Chapter 9). From the beginning, Yad Vashem evinced the notion of the progression from Shoah [holocaust] to Tkuma [revival]82 as the main theme of modern Jewish history. This theme, which is embedded in the official discourse of the Holocaust in Israel,83 prominently features in the narrative structure of the historical exhibition, created in the early 1960s, which is on permanent display in the Yad Vashem museum.

The idea to relate the memory of the Holocaust with the story of national restoration appeared at an early stage. Already in 1949, Reuven Hecht proposed erecting on one of the mountains in western Jerusalem a "national grave where the ashes of martyrs and the bones of our heroes gathered from all concentration camps would be buried";84 according to Hecht, this was the appropriate place for Israel's national pantheon and where, eventually, the last resting place for Herzl would also be.85 Later Hecht suggested two "sacred graves"-Herzl's grave, and the "grave of the unknown slain Jew"-which would function as a "new national shrine."86 Eventually the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and the national pantheon at Mount Herzl were physically and administratively separated, thereby emphasizing the different function and meaning assigned to each and distinguishing between the Shoah and Tkuma as two different themes that represent the two poles in the Zionist narrative, from Shoah (the destruction of the European Diaspora) to Tkuma (in the ancient Jewish homeland).

The contextualization of the Holocaust within a redemptive framework of interpretation, however, rendered the geographical proximity between Mount Herzl and Yad Vashem symbolically meaningful. This was articulated in a forceful manner in 1962 by Levy Eshkol, who a year later replaced Ben-Gurion as a Prime Minister:

The very struggle against the [Nazi] adversary and the victory which followed [in the War of Independence] laid the foundations for the revival of our national independence. Seen in this light, the Jewish fight against the Nazis and the War of Independence were, in fact, a single protracted battle. The geographical proximity between Yad Vashem and Mount Herzl thus expresses far more than mere physical closeness.87

FINAL REMARKS

As a memorial space, the power of the national cemetery at Mount Herzl is a derivative of its being an official rendition of the constitutive myth of the State of Israel. According to its conception, two major Zionist myths were conjoined in the terrain of Mount Herzl. One is the myth of the founding father, represented by Herzl's tomb, supplemented by the myth of Zionist succession, represented by the gravesites of Zionist leaders and Israeli national figures. The second is the myth of heroic sacrifice manifested by the adjacent military cemetery.

The power of Mount Herzl as a national institution emanates from its location in the national capital and from its ceremonial functions, which make it the sacred center of Israeli nationhood. Though not a comprehensive version of Zionist history, the thematic texture of the national cemetery celebrates a version of historical continuity, evinces notions of symbolic contexts, and integrates distinct political histories and heroic myths into a coherent narrative of national revival and restoration. In particular, the distinction between the civilian and military parts of Mount Herzl accentuates aspects of the history of the Zionist endeavor. The belonging together of the different parts, however, is emphasized, not only by their being spatially adjacent, but mainly by the designation "Mount Herzl." Applied to the entire space defined by the cluster of gravesites on the hill and its slopes, this designation serves as a title for the historical account of Zionist history provided by Mount Herzl in its capacity as the national cemetery. It also asserts the symbolic prominence of Herzl as a source of legitimacy in its virtue as the visionary and the initiator of the national project.

Belonging to a well-defined configuration of national sites in Jerusalem, Mount Herzl is engaged in a dynamic interplay of symbolic meanings with other national sites. The construction of Mount Herzl, and later of nearby Yad Vashem in western Jerusalem, was unavoidable in the wake of the territorial division of Jerusalem in the 1948 war. A significant outcome of this, however, was the spatialization of collective meanings along an east-west axis. In spite of later efforts to ceremonially integrate the Western Wall into the symbolic foundations of Israeli nationhood, it is further permeated with religious messianism and eschatological beliefs. Mount Herzl, on the other hand, epitomizes the Zionist notion of Israeli patriotism in the manner in which it evinces and celebrates the Zionist argument about Jewish national revival and restoration as a valid option of national redemption.

In this framework of interpretation, Mount Herzl suggests a secular-national alternative to the Western Wall and its distinguished religious and eschatological meanings. In this capacity the Western Wall and Mount Herzl, each a concretization in terms of place of a distinct version of national redemption, figure as a highly charged dipole of symbolic meanings that features prominently in the Israeli discourse of collective identity.

Notes

*The material upon which this study is based includes hitherto unpublished archive material and newspaper reports that document different aspects of Mount Herzl and its history.

1. See J. Rykewert, The Idea of a Town. The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ, 1979) 34-5.

2. W. Zelinsky, Nation into State. The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism (Chapel Hill, NC, and London, 1988) 177.

3. See G. Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses (New York, 1975); E. Hobsbawn, "Mass-Producing Traditions," in E. Hobsbawn and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983) 263-308; K.S. Inglis, "A Sacred Place: The Making of the Australian War Memorial," War and Society, 3(2) (1985) 99-126.; M. Azaryahu, "War Memorials and the Commemoration of the Israeli War of Independence 1948-1956," Studies in Zionism, 13(1) (1992) 57-77; Gillis (ed), Commemorations. The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ, 1994); N.C. Johnson, "Sculpting Heroic Histories: Celebrating the Centenary of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 19 (1994), 78-93.

4. Y. Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israel National Tradition (Chicago, IL, 1995); B. Schwartz, "The Social Context of Commemoration. A Study in Collective Memory," Social Forces, 82 (1982) 374-402.

5. cf. Azaryahu, "War Memorials," in his Pulchaney Medinah [State Cults: Celebrating Independence and Commemorating the Fallen in Israel 1948-1956] (Sede-Boker, 1995) [Hebrew]; E. Levinger, Memorials for the Fallen (Tel-Aviv, 1994) [Hebrew].

6. Genesis 47:29-31; 49:29-32; 50:24-5.

7. Yona L. [a 6th grade pupil], "Visiting a Teacher," Pinatenu, No. 2 (Adar 5687 [1927]), The Archive of Jewish Education 4.145/3 [Hebrew].

8. Davar, 9 December 1931 [Hebrew].

9. Memorandum, joint committee in charge of reinterment of Herzl 1949, Central Zionist Archive (CZA) S5T 429 [Hebrew].

10. In his Knesset speech before the state funeral, Ben-Gurion maintained that "Not a mournful funeral will the reinterment of Herzl's bones be, but a triumph of the vision that became reality."

11. See also the report in Ha'Aretz, 29 July 1949 [Hebrew].

12. Protocol, session of the committee in charge of the reinterment of Herzl, 21 December 1948, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

13. Ha'Aretz, 29 July 1949 [Hebrew].

14 .Y. Schukhman, "Herzl Tomb in Jerusalem Obliges," Davar, 26 August 1949 [Hebrew].

15. These were: the Sanhedria Cemetery; Sheikh Bader, the area designated for the building of the Kirya (the government compound) in Jerusalem; Beit Kerem; Sha'arfa Hill near Bait Vagan; a hill in Givat Shaul overlooking the road to Jerusalem; the quarry at Bayit Vagan; the area near the Schneller compound in northern West Jerusalem (Protocol, session of the committee in charge of the reinterment of Herzl, 19 January 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew]). At the second stage, four sites were discussed: The Schneller compound; the hill near Sheikh Bader; Givat Shaul; and, the quarry at Bayit Vagan (Protocol, session on 23 January 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew]).

16. On 10 April 1949, the committee toured the proposed burial site (Y. Weitz, My Diary and Letters to the Children, vIV (Ramat-Gan, 1965) 25, yet no public announcement was made at this stage. In May, Hazofe reported that the burial site "was still a secret" (26 May 1949) [Hebrew]. The public announcement of the location was finally released in June (Ha'Dor, 14 June 1949) [Hebrew].

17. Memorandum, joint committee in charge of reinterment of Herzl 1949, CZA S5T 429 [Hebrew].

18. See Yedi'ot Ahronot, 14 January 1949 [Hebrew].

19. On 15 June 1949, Ma'ariv reported that the ceremony would take place on Herzl Day. The importance assigned to the issue by the Israeli press can also be deduced from the fact that Yedi'ot Ahronot, which was probably better informed, announced the delay as the main feature of its front page on 12 June 1949 [Hebrew].

20. The "appropriation" of Herzl Day for the celebration of the army was justified by Ben-Gurion with the argument that this day would be the day of both the "visionary" (Herzl) and the "implementer" (the army). On the objection to this fusion see, A. Geldblum, "Hanihu et-Yom Kaf be'Tamuz le'Herzl," Ha'Aretz, 29 July 1949 [Hebrew].

21. See the already mentioned editorial of Ha'Aretz from 2 August 1949 [Hebrew]. Herut, the daily organ of the opposition party, maintained that this was done intentionally, in order to belittle the significance of Herzl, according to the old Revisionist argument that the Zionist labor movement abandoned Herzl's legacy (see Y. Netz, "Kavranei Herzl," Herut, 29 July 1949 [Hebrew]). The modesty that characterized the ceremony was a symptom of the trauma of the failure of the military parade on Israel's first Independence Day (April 1949), which prompted those in charge of the reinterment ceremony to reduce public participation to a minimum in order not to allow for the possibility of public disorder. Yigael Yadin, the then Chief of Staff, maintained that the army should not be involved again in a mass event taking place immediately after Independence Day and Army Day (Herut, 27 July 1949 [Hebrew]). As a compromise, the organizing committee suggested broadcasting the ceremony over the state radio Kol Yisrael.

22. The editorial of Ha'Aretz, for instance, referred specifically to the state funeral of Thomas Masaryk, the founding father of Czechoslovakia, as a model for such a ceremony ("Mi'Yom le'Yom," Ha'Aretz, 2 August 1949 [Hebrew]).

23. As reported, the workers busy in the construction of the grave considered it to be "An historic privilege to be called upon to work in a place that will be sanctified" (Ha'Boker, 29 July 1949).

24. Another common designation was "Herzl Hill" (Ha'Aretz, 1 August 1949). E.L. Lauterbach of the Zionist executive, who was involved in the reinterment of Herzl, suggested the names "Herzl Hill" or "Herzl Summit" (Letter, A.L. Lauterbach to B. Luker, 28 August 1949, CZA S5T-423 [Hebrew].

25. Yad Vashem Symposium, 15 July 1956, 6, State Archive 43/c-5564/4020 [Hebrew].

26. Herut, 21 August 1949 [Hebrew].

27. Letter, Z. Evnat to Eisenberg, 4 September 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

28. Letter, E.L. Lauterbach to B. Luker, 29 December 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew]. See also a former report to the Treasury by the Organization Department of the Zionist Executive, 1 October 1949, CZA 5ST 423 [Hebrew].

29. Herut, 21 August 1949 [Hebrew].

30. Letter, the Organization Department of the Zionist Executive to the Treasury, 26 August 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

31. Letter, Z. Evnat to Eisenberg, 9 September 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

32. Letter, Ben-Gurion to B. Luker, the Jewish Agency, 31 August 1949, State Archive, C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

33. Letter, E.L. Lauterbach to B. Luker, 12 December 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

34. Letter, the Organization Department of the Zionist Executive to the Treasury, 26 August 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew]. Among the texts suggested were: "Remember That You Are near Herzl's Tomb"; "Respect the Place"; "Do not Smoke near the Grave"; and, "Do not Sit on the Tomb Structure." Two such signs-"Do not Talk Much," and "Do not Run"-were rejected at a preliminary stage.

35. On 8 November 1949, Ha'Boker reported about complaints that the area was neglected and that renovation would begin the following Spring.

36. Report about a tour of the burial area by representatives of the Jewish Agency and the JNF, 21 November 21 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

37. Letter, Z. Scherf to B. Luker, 30 April 1950, State Archive, C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

38. Letter, the Zionist Organization to Z. Scherf, 11 July 1952, State Archive C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

39. See a summary report concerning the reinterment of Herzl in Jerusalem, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew]; on prevailing notions, see Davar, 1 August 1949 [Hebrew].

40. Guidelines to the participants in the public contest for the architectural design of Herzl's Tomb.

41. The demand to take into consideration the constraints imposed by Jewish tradition was common in guidelines for public commemorations; e.g., memorials for fallen soldiers initiated by the state or towns, where the need to cater to religious sentiments was especially significant. This was not the case with the secular Kibbutzim, most notably, Negba.

42. Memorandum, meeting between Y. Kreutner and Y. Weitz, 8 November 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

43. Letter to E.L. Lauterbach, 28 March 1954, CZA S5T 424 [Hebrew]. As an example of the danger of a national monument, the letter also mentions the mausoleum for Vittorio Emanual II in Rome, which had been dedicated in 1911.

44. The issue was discussed again in 1959; see Weitz, My Diary, V, entry from 5 June 1959, 114 [Hebrew]; Memorandum, session of the Implementation Committee, 19 June 1959, State Archive C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

45. On the tombstone and its construction, see the report in Dvar Ha'Shavua, issue no. 26, 29 June 1960, 10-11.

46. Davar, 6 July 1960 [Hebrew].

47. Ibid., 15 July 1960 [Hebrew].

48. From an advertisement that appeared in the South African Jewish Chronicle (CZA S5T 421).

49. See Al ha'Mishmar,, 1 August 1949 [Hebrew]; Memorandum, meeting between Y. Kreutner of the Jewish Agency and Y. Weitz of the JNF, 8 November 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

50. A report that appeared in Zmanim, 23 November 1954, maintained that, indeed, flowers and trees were being planted at the site.

51. On the decision to transfer the Herzl Room to Mt. Herzl, see Weitz, My Diary, V, entry for 2 October 1957, 47; Protocol, Implementation Committee for Mt. Herzl, session on 30 April 1958, State Archive, 4714/C-5595 [Hebrew]. On the inauguration ceremony, see Weitz, My Diary V, entry from 14 July 1960, p. 167 [Hebrew].

52. "Mivza Urim"--the celebrations at Herzl's Tomb, letter, Colonel Y. Elhanani to the WZO, 12 December 1949, CZA S5T 423 [Hebrew].

53. The Masekhet was compiled by Lieutenant M. Reichman (CZA S5T 423) [Hebrew].

54. Officials of the World Zionist Organization even toyed with the idea of dedicating Kaf Be'Tamuz to the Organization (unsent letter, the Zionist Executive to Z. Scherf, 10 March 1950, CZA S5T 215 [Hebrew]).

55. Letter, the Zionist Executive to the Histadrut General Zionists, 17 April 1953, CZA S5T 424 [Hebrew].

56. It was the speaker of the Knesset, and not the President, who functioned as the highest ranking dignitary because Weizmann was ill and confined to his Rehovot residence. The only visit Weizmann made to Mt. Herzl was on 22 November 1949 on a formal state occasion (Ha'Boker, 10 November 1949; 23 November 1949 [Hebrew].

57. On the symbolic meanings, see: Hazofe, 3 April 1952 [Hebrew]. A rich and insightful analysis of the ceremony is provided by D. Handelman, Models and Mirrors. Towards an Anthropology of Public Events (Cambridge 1990).

58. Letter, Sh. Arazi, Independence Day Committee to the World Zionist Organization, 26 March 1951, CZA S5T 216 [Hebrew].

59. Memorandum, 30 September 1955, State Archive C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

60. Memorandum, 11 March 1956, State Archive C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

61. Letter, The Zionist Executive to the Secretary of the government, 11 March 1951, State Archive, C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

62. Session on 15 March 1951, State Archive, C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

63. Letter, Ben-Gurion to Ben-Zvi, 3 June 1956, State Archive. C/3978/5562 [Hebrew].

64. A summary of the visit to Mt. Herzl concerning the family grave of Zeev Jabotinsky and his wife, 28 April 1964, Jabotinsky Archive, H/6/2/9 [Hebrew].

65. Letter, M. Sharett, Chairman of the Zionist Executive, to Dr. A. Weinshal and A.Z. Propes, 16 June 1964, Jabotinsky Archive, H/6/2/9 [Hebrew].

66. The place of Jabotinsky in the hierarchy of Zionist leaders is also manifest in the frequency of his commemoration by street names in Jewish towns. According to a survey made in May 1995, 28 of 30 big cities had a Jabotinsky Street, compared to 23 Herzl Streets (no. 4 on the list), and 10 Ben-Gurion Streets (no. 10 on the list). It should be mentioned, however, that Ben-Gurion is also commemorated by the names of neighborhoods, Israel's premier airport (Ben-Gurion International Airport), and the university in Beer-Sheva (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).

67. Al ha'Mishmar, 11 August 1949 [Hebrew].

68. Letter, Y. Dekel to E. Peri, 1 August 1949, IDF Archive [Hebrew].

69. Protocol, the jury of the competition for the design of Herzl's tomb, session on 29 March 1950, CZA S5T 429 [Hebrew].

70. Budget proposal for 1950, the Unit for Commemoration in the Defense Ministry, IDF Archive [Hebrew].

71. Davar, 27 March 1950 [Hebrew].

72. In a meeting with Pinhas Lavon when he became Defense Minister, a delegation of bereaved parents complained that, though the building of the military cemetery at Mt. Herzl was almost completed, the construction of other cemeteries was lagging behind schedule. (Protocol, meeting of Yad Lebanim with Pinhas Lavon, 1 March 1954, IDF Archive [Hebrew].

73. Davar, 30 April 1952 [Hebrew].

74. Weitz, My Diary, IV, entry for 13 July 1952, 203 [Hebrew].

75. Letter Y. Weitz to T. Kollek, Prime Minister's Office, 13 November 1953, State Archive C/5595/4714 [Hebrew].

76. Yedi'ot Ahronot, 11 November 1995, 15 [Hebrew].

77. Ibid., 12 November 1995, 15 [Hebrew].

78. Answers to questions of competitors in the public contest for the design of Herzl's gravesite, 9 February 1951, CZA S5T 439 [Hebrew].

79. On this aspect, see my article "The Mountain, the Wall and the Narrative of the Third temple. Jewish-Israeli Symbolic Geography of Jerusalem," Compar(a)isons, 2 (1994) 109-26.

80. A.B. Yehoshua, "The Wall and the Mountain," Politica, 14-15 (1987), 2-3, [Hebrew].

81. On the symbolism of the Mall, see "Warriors and Statesmen. Symbolism in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Nearby Monuments," Critical Inquiry, 12 (1986), 688-719.

82. A. Shalev, lecture delivered in the Louvre in December 1993, reprinted in Ba'Museun, No. 7 (March 1994) 22-3 [Hebrew].

83. M. Halbertal, "The Israelis and the Holocaust," reprinted in The Jerusalem Post, 10 April 1994.

84. Letter, R. Hecht to Ben-Gurion, 30 March 1949, State Archive 43/5564/4020 [Hebrew].

85. Letter, R. Hecht to Ben-Gurion, 10 October 1949, State Archive 43/5564/4020 [Hebrew].

86. Letter, R. Hecht to Ben-Gurion, 12 December 1949, State Archive 43/5564/4020 [Hebrew].

87. Yad Vashem Bulletin,, 16 (1965) 62; cited also in Handelman, Models and Mirrors, 201; J. Young, The Texture of Memory. Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT and London, (New Haven, CT, 1993).

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