The campaign to restore Har Hazeisim

It’s the resting place of three prophets, one prime minister, the first Chief Rabbi and the inventor of the Modern Hebrew language and it has fallen into complete disrepair.

A group of prominent Jewish political leaders and businessmen have begun a campaign to restore Har Hazeisim, Israel’s oldest cemetery. An estimated 150,000 are buried in the cemetery, which is opposite the Temple Mount, including both Gerrer and Belzer Rebbes, Menachem Begin and the prophets Chagai, Zecharia and Malachi. Some graves date to the Biblical era, which makes the desecration all the more galling.

“There is a national consensus that almost everyone admits it is a national disgrace,” explained Menachem Lubinsky, the President of the Jewish marketing consulting firm, Lubicom, and the founder of the National Committee for preservation of Har Hazeisim.

Together with his brother, Avrohom, Lubinsky founded the committee after reading a report on the condition of the cemetery by Israel State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.

Lindenstrauss’s report noted the poor condition of the cemetery, parts of which Arabs in the area had been using as a thoroughfare. The report corroborated what Lubinsky and his brother had seen over the last 25 years when they had visited their parents’ graves.

“There have been reports of visitors that have been stoned,” said Lubinsky. “Newer graves uprooted by sledgehammers. A section [of the cemetery] became the drug capital of East Jerusalem... There is trash on the mountain… Remember, this is Har Hazeisim, where the ashes of the red heifer were prepared, where each month was pronounced and where G-d said the resurrection would happen.”

Lubinsky says that the damage seems to have been a result of bureaucracy rather than willful neglect.

“The responsibility for the mountain is shared by four different ministries: housing and construction, interior, religions, and the prime minister’s office,” Lubinsky said.

“We have been advocating one czar minister for Har Hazeisim.”

The committee members include Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel.

“It is both a Jewish tragedy and a national disgrace that this hallowed burial site has effectively been ceded to vandals and terrorists,” Rabbi Zwiebel said. “Frankly, it is hard to believe that pressure from American Jewry should be necessary to press Israeli officials to address this scandalous state of affairs, but apparently that is what was needed.”

A panel was devoted to the issue at last week’s Agudah convention.

“Honoring the dead is given the highest priority in Jewish life,” Hoenlein said.
Hoenlein sees the restoration as a part of the current political battle over the holy sites of Israel. He noted that recently the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Rachel’s Cave as a mosque.

“It’s an obligation we have to the future, not only to those buried in the past,” Hoenlein said about restoring the cemetery. “We’re educating our young about the dignity and assurances of our holy places.”

Hoenlein also sees the fight for the preservation of the cemetery as part of an ongoing battle for Israel’s legitimacy and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“We don’t abandon Jerusalem,” Hoenlein said.