Har Herzl (Hebrew for 'Mount Herzl') is an 834m mountain situated in western Jerusalem near the Jerusalem Forest, Ein Kerem, Beit HaKerem and Ba'it VeGan, which is better known as the Mount of Commemoration
On the mountain, one can find the burial area for Israel's most prominent figures (The Zionist Union's leaders, Israel's leaders, prime ministers, presidents and other notable figures), Israel's primary military cemetery and Yad VaShem, the well-known museum and research center of the Holocaust,which is located on the mountain's western slops. The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by an extreme rightwing assassin, was buried on Mount Herzl in 1995. Many Arab leaders, including the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat, attended the funeral.Unsurprisingly (considering the list of locations just mentioned), some refer to Mount Herzl as "Mount of Commemoration".
In 1948, even before the War of Independence came to an end, the Israeli government decided to rebury Herzl, the prophet of the State of Israel, in Israel as part of the efforts to establish its identity as a state. The government at the time wanted to found an official, symbolic burial site – a pantheon for the country's leaders and the Zionist leadership. Herzl, who died in 1904, asked to be buried in Vienna and then reburied in Israel with his family, by the representatives of the Jewish people in Israel. The square just outside Herzl's burial place is where the annual ceremony that concludes the Memorial Day for the casualties of war in Israel and marks the commencement of the Independence Day celebrations takes place.
The Herzl Center, located at the entrance to the burial site, offers visitors and in-depth encounter with Theodor Herzl and his vision and offers a comprehensive historical account of the events that lead Herzl to forsake the idea of assimilation and promote the idea of a Jewish state. Photographs, manuscripts, letters and other documents pack this small but impressive little museum, which has recently been renovated. For further details: http://www.doingzionism.org.il/herzl/mt.asp
The proximity of the various momentous institutions to the mountain can be regarded as a symbol of one of the main narratives in Israeli society (especially in the country's first years) – the Jewish people's move from Holocaust to Revival. The different institutions located on the top and slopes of the mountains represent the aspiration to found a Jewish State, on one hand, and the dear price paid to fulfill this aspiration, on the other.
