Got a chance to take a Friday off work and go on a tour instead, a group of us got to go to Mount Hertzl which is next to the Yad Veshem holocaust museum.   “Ha Hertzl” is written in the topiary here in Hebrew.

Here this place is a cemetery for some of the senior members of the government and founding pioneers of the country.

Here’s a close up of this unusual Menorah, its all steel, and intricately made.   If you look closely there’s some poles with pulleys for something, not sure what exactly.  It looks like the whole assembly is supposed to pivot sideways in separate assemblies too.

This is the grave of Theodor Herzl the father of Zionism.   Herzl was not religious, his vision was to create a Jewish nation just for Jews to love away from antisemitism, at the time there were many pieces of land chosen for a prototype Israel, some of them being Uganda (!) and Kamchatka, which is eastern Russia, before the new state of Israel seemed a better choice with its vast amount of historical value from Jewish people who had dwelled there previously.    Its funny today how ‘Zionism’ is a dirty word these days associated with racism with some people when actually Hertzl was not at all religious but had a Christian friend who gave him some moral courage to make founding of a Jewish nation a reality.

This grave is quite new, the right hand one that is, its for Yitzak Shamir who died this year, his wife died previously.

This is Golda Meir, prime minister during the 1973 Yom Kippor war.   A popular and kind lady she probably pre-dated Margret Thatcher commonly known as the ‘iron lady’ as a female statesman.

This is for Yitzak Rabin who was gunned down in 1994 in Tel Aviv by a lone Jewish assassin.

Of course, there are some notable exceptions, the first leader of Israel David Ben Gurion is not buried here, but in a small community in the desert, as he enjoyed living in a holiday home out there.   Military leaders, fallen soldiers and Rabbis are more likely to be found in the Mount of Olives.