Beit Kvarot
(Israeli Cemetery)
The cemetery is present in the Israeli landscape just as death is present in Israeli life.
It is a peripheral but constant presence. It reflects a grave and a tombstone, a funeral and eulogies, Z"L and H"YD, bereavement and comfort—words that are repeated again and again, on days of mourning and on memorial days placed on the personal and the national calendar.
Israelis encounter mourning and memory from a very young age.
This can occur due to personal grief over the death of a relative, or communal grief over the death of a leader or a well-known figure.
More than anything, it happens to them in the grief that has national significance.
National memory and mourning exist throughout the year. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, and for 75 years, it has dealt with security tensions involving large and small wars, military operations, and terror attacks... and each of these events exacts a human cost, adding more and more names to the ever-lengthening list of those killed on the altar of Israel’s security.
Israel is a small, communal, almost familial country. Every casualty has an immediate circle of family and close and distant circles of friends from school or the youth movement, from military or national service, from university or the yeshiva, from the village or the city neighborhood.
The rumor of the casualty rolls quickly and reaches the ears of these close and distant circles even before their name is publicly released. They await the official announcement that specifies details about the funeral date and travel to the cemetery.
There, young and old of all ages gather, stunned and shocked by the sudden death, for a brief hour of support and collective identification, accompanying the immediate family and trying to suppress the thought that it could have happened to them too.
The cemetery is the first stop on the Israelis' journey into the depths of the "culture of bereavement" that has developed in Israel.
It is part of the backdrop for national events dealing with remembrance and commemoration.
The funerals of the fallen receive media coverage on an individual basis for each casualty. Those who do not attend the funeral can read about it in the newspaper or on the internet, or watch pictures of the ceremony at the cemetery broadcast on television as an inseparable part of the news edition.
Once a year, on Yom HaZikaron (Israel's Memorial Day for the Fallen), the cemeteries are especially crowded.
Masses flock to the compounds scattered across the country to participate in ceremonies organized by the local authority. Even the small cemeteries in remote settlements come alive.
Heavy traffic congestion is noticeable on the roads leading to the compounds—there are buses and shuttles for families and for anyone who feels the need to come and participate in the ceremony, whether they personally knew a casualty or not.
Those who cannot attend one of the ceremonies can watch the central, state ceremony, broadcast live on all media channels from Mount Herzl in Jerusalem—a mountain that is one large cemetery.
The national calendar also includes memorial days for figures counted in the list of "Gedolei Ha'Uma" (Greats of the Nation), whose day of death is legally designated as a day of remembrance requiring a ceremony around their grave. These ceremonies also receive high media coverage and present pictures from the cemetery to the Israeli public.
The annual "Yom HaZikaron" ceremony
at the military cemetery in Petah Tikva.
The culture of bereavement in Israel is entirely based on religious and national foundations that coalesce and shape it.
Most Israeli cemeteries have a Jewish character—only those born Jewish or those who underwent a conversion process are buried there.
The funeral, followed by the burial process, is conducted by members of the "Chevra Kadisha" (Holy Society), all of whom are religious Jews, who recite unique prayers and perform the ritual according to the rules of the Jewish tradition passed down for thousands of years. Many of the men attending the ceremony wear a kippah (skullcap) on their heads, as a gesture of respect to the tradition; the body of the deceased is covered in a Tallit (prayer shawl), and in recent years, some also wrap it in the flag of Israel.
Upon these foundations, a system of remembrance and commemoration has also been built that is suitable for private instances of mourning—for a family tragedy or even a natural death. This too is influenced by the Jewish tradition, the family-centric and communal nature of Israel's Jewish citizens.
In everyday, "ordinary" cases of death, funeral ceremonies are conducted according to unwritten procedures and customs that have evolved over the years. The commitment to express sorrow and embrace the mourners creates an opportunity, albeit a sad one, for family or social gatherings of close and distant circles.
The "Beit HaHespedim" ("Eulogy Hall") in Ashdod during a civil funeral: crowds gather in the outside plaza after the venue itself filled up.
The cemetery is deeply rooted in the Israeli consciousness.
There is no Jewish Israeli—religious or secular, poor or rich—who hasn't visited a cemetery at least once or twice in their life and been present in the scene that unfolds there. Usually, the scene is brief, it has a fixed time limit, and afterward, one needs to hurry from there back to life itself.
Those who take their time and wander through the paths and burial plots have a good chance of learning something more about what happens inside the compound that mirrors what happens outside it.
There, in the place where life and death meet, one can discover clear signs of division and gender separation among the deceased, just as in the daily reality of Israeli society.
In the burial sites of ultra-Orthodox communities, there is gender separation between women's and men's graves; there are cemeteries in Israel with separate plots for Ashkenazim and plots for Mizrahim, and a sub-division for immigrants from various Diaspora communities; there are those with special plots for the burial of faculty members from academic institutions; there are plots for writers and artists; and there are burial plots for figures defined as "Gedolei Ha'Uma" (Greats of the Nation) or "Gedolei HaDor" (Greats of the Generation).
And then there are the "most prestigious" in every Israeli cemetery.
They are called the "military plot" or "military cemetery." This is a marked area with directions and signage, prominently separated from the rest of the burial grounds for ordinary citizens who have passed away.
In these plots, fallen IDF soldiers and security forces are buried, and they are state-funded. These plots receive more frequent visits, are better maintained, and are characterized by uniformity in the appearance of the grave structure, the tombstone upon it, and the content inscribed on it.
In large cemeteries, separate plots are also allocated for victims of terror attacks; these are also state-funded.
The military plot in the cemetery in Hadera.
The military plot in the cemetery in Herzliya.
There are exceptions as well.
About a quarter of Israeli citizens are buried in separate and different burial arrangements. The largest minority, Muslim citizens, bury their dead in their own cemeteries, as do Christian Arabs and the Druze community in Israel—these cemeteries are rarely exposed to the Jewish public, except for the families of the deceased and their immediate circles.
Following the mass immigration from the former Soviet Union, which included many immigrants who are not Jewish according to Halakha (Jewish Law), the state established "Civil Cemeteries"—they are intended for the burial of citizens of all religions and origins, including those who are not Jewish according to Halakha, without mandatory religious ceremonies. Among the Jewish population in Israel, many secular people also prefer to be buried there after their death.
Iconic Israeli photo from 2012:
The boy Lahav Cohen refuses to leave the grave of his father, Yamam fighter Michael Cohen.
Historical Bits:
Cemeteries in Israel fill a symbolic void in the Jewish heritage. A historical void that was created in the 20th century.
During the first years of the state, hundreds of thousands of Jews flocked to it from Europe, homeless refugees who left behind communities that had been destroyed to their foundation. The survivors lived through the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were completely annihilated. None of the victims had a grave they could visit and commune with to express memories and longing. Nor was there a memorial date they could place on the calendar.
The survivors made do with improvised symbols of remembrance and mourning for the death of their loved ones: memorial candles (Yahrzeit candles) lit on the eve of Yom Kippur, solitary photographs remaining from their former lives, visits to memorials or the Yad Vashem museum established by the state. The official Holocaust Memorial Day provided them with small additional comfort, in the knowledge that they were part of the national narrative of the State of Israel.
Along with them came hundreds of thousands of Jews who immigrated from Islamic countries. They too left behind communities that were plundered and of which no trace remained. In the homelands they left, the graves of their fathers and ancestors remained, and in the new homeland, they also had no place to commune with the memory of their family members, friends, and relatives.
The cemeteries in Israel filled the heritage void.
They were peripheral compounds that were allocated and delineated even before the state was established. Every settlement and every community had its own cemetery, small and modest. A plot of land outside the settlement boundaries, where the dead were buried—in cities and villages, in kibbutzim and moshavim. Those who died were buried, a Jewish burial according to Halakha, observing all the rules of the ritual accepted in the Jewish heritage.
Throughout the first decades of the state, the compounds remained outside the cities and settlements.
The elders of that generation, and everyone who died naturally or unnaturally, gained a burial place that family members could visit, but the compound itself did not occupy an important place in the Israeli experience. The only attention given to them was during the accelerated process of city building and development. The accelerated construction brought residential buildings closer to them, and from many apartments, one could see a view from the window that included marble tombstones and the graves of the deceased.
In the 1970s, the "culture of bereavement" intensified, and the process began that positioned the cemeteries in a prominent place in the Israeli consciousness.
Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan delivers a eulogy at the grave of Roi Rotberg in Nahal Oz, 1956. The eulogy is considered one of the speeches that shaped the Israeli identity. You can read about it here on Wikipedia - at the attached link.
Bereavement and commemoration existed since the early days of Zionism and the consolidation of the Jewish Yishuv (pre-state community), and were integrated into the ethos of combat and heroism.
Even then, they were a factor that unified society and an important clause in the national narrative.
After the establishment of the state, in the 1950s, the leaders and shapers of the Zionist path continued to maintain it, still without a physical presence of burial sites, but with many official mentions. The most prominent among them was the speech by Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, delivered over the grave of Roi Rotberg, who was murdered by terrorists in his kibbutz, Nahal Oz.
The Six-Day War in 1967 ended with many hundreds of casualties, who were buried without particularly high public attention. Their death and burial were pushed aside compared to the tremendous impression left by the brilliant victory in the war.
Then began the War of Attrition, which lasted a few years on various fronts and involved a series of terror attacks. The number of fallen constantly rose, week after week, and the media began reporting on each of them, in many cases also telling their life story.
The Yom Kippur War in 1973, which ended with thousands of dead and wounded, boosted the awareness of bereavement in the Israeli consciousness. At that time, multiple communication channels had already opened, led by Israeli television, which presented the Israeli reality in sounds and images, and with live broadcasts of funerals.
Afterward came the First Lebanon War and the Second Lebanon War, and the First Intifada filled with terror attacks, followed by the Second Intifada... And the ethos of the dead intensified.
1989 - The funeral of Avi Sasportas, the first victim in the Hamas terror attacks.
1974 - The funeral of the victims of the Kiryat Shmona attack.
As the number of casualties increased, the processes of mourning and commemoration became established in the collective consciousness in Israel—in memorial songs, in books, in the speeches of leaders, in memorials, in landmarks, and in ceremonies held throughout the year.
Death and burial became more and more relevant, and the bringing of the deceased to burial became self-evident - A kind of social, national, and religious obligation. People wanted to have a grave to commune with the memory of their loved ones, and the state recognized this need and over the years established special regulations that institutionalized it.
Basic burial arrangements are funded for every Israeli citizen, to an extent unparalleled in any other country in the world. The state also invests many resources in bringing its fallen to burial, and this too has been woven into the myths. So much so that it is clear to every Israeli that the state will do everything to bring a fallen soldier to burial. And it will pay particularly high prices to bring even the remains of their bones.
As the state marks 75 years, the "culture of bereavement" occupies a broad place in Israeli society. And the cemeteries are one setting among the variety of settings that represent it.
In the ultra-Orthodox society in Israel, a funeral and burial are an duty and a mitzvah (religious commandment), and a unifying factor in the community, and they often take place with mass participation. In the picture: The funeral of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein in a cemetery in Bnei Brak, 2023.
This is part of "The Israeli Story 1948-2025" project.
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