אין לנו חיילים אלמוניםWe Have No Unknown Soldiers:

Har Herzl & The Establishment of a Zionist Narrative Among Israeli and Diaspora Jews

Jesse E. Paikin

1  

“And memorial tombstones everywhere, are weights to keep the history of the country from flying off like papers in the wind.”

Dangerous Country, Yehuda Amichai1

To memorialize the dead in a national cemetery is to acknowledge that the lives of the past

continue to play a role in the lives of the present; the dead are not merely mourned as

personal losses, but are enshrined in a national, communal memory. All memory, as Rebecca

Kook argues, is memory for something and thus has political purposes which cannot be

ignored.2 The dead and the memories of the dead (both personal and communal) are not relics

of the past, but have active, utilitarian roles in functioning of wider society.

Most Western national and military cemeteries, in their use of memory, can be

described as “landscapes of memory,”3 where memories of the dead are presented by the

cemetery and viewed by the visitor, akin to static pictures viewed and understood in their

own specific context.4 In contrast, Israel’s national military cemetery, Har Herzl, can be

described as “landscape as memory,”5 where memory is engaged in a two-way dialogue with

visitors, and the memories of the dead themselves are “unceasingly reforming the shaping of

[their] own significance.”6 Highlighting this distinction and attesting to the significance of

memories of the dead is the fact that, at one for every sixteen soldiers, Israel has more

monuments to the dead than any other country in the world.7 For Israel’s national cemetery in

particular, memorializing the dead is not merely a matter of presenting memories, it is about

presenting memories to “serve the agency of the living.”8

Supported by this concept of memory, we may understand that Har Herzl was

conceived with explicit political goals as to its role in fomenting a burgeoning national

identity and establishing a sweeping national narrative. This national identity was based

largely on collective memory and self-sacrifice, and a narrative that strove to connect

2  

symbolic themes from pre-state Zionist aspirations, the catastrophe of the Holocaust, and the

ultimate redemption represented by the State’s founding. This identity and narrative must be

understood as central to the development of Zionist/Israeli civil religion. Furthermore, the

site’s meaning is not statically confined to the historical; its narrative continues to be in

dialogue with contemporary Israeli nationalist sentiments, responding and adapting to the sitz

im leben of Israelis. Beyond the geographical borders of the State itself, Har Herzl has

evolved to play a central role in the Jewish identity formation of young diaspora Jews, as a

key educational component of pilgrimage tours. In this light, Har Herzl should not be viewed

as what French Historian Pierre Nora calls lieux de memoire (sites of memory) – a “cold

marker of a society without ritual”9 – rather the site must be understood to be dynamic and

responsive, playing an active role in the civil religion, nationalist identity, and collective

memory of both Israeli and Diaspora Jews.

The beginnings of Israeli civil religion stem from the pre-State Zionist movement’s

elevation of the ideal of the ‘New Jew.’10 Beyond achieving redemption and sovereignty in

an independent Jewish State, a dominant theme among Zionist luminaries was the notion that

individual Jews themselves needed to be redeemed, through physical labor and becoming

what Zionist thinker Max Nordau labeled “Muscle Jews.”11 In becoming ‘New Jews,’ the

Zionists could take control of history, instead of being controlled by it, eventually asserting

their legitimacy in their ancestral homeland. To achieve this goal, Zionism required a new set

of values and symbols, particularly of a “sanctified character,” 12 which would attract Jews to

take part in the Zionist project. It is these values and symbols which formed the basis of

Israel’s civil religion, and which permeate Har Herzl.

At the outside, a few words should be given to the physical design and construction of

Har Herzl, so that we may understand how symbolism and meaning are mapped onto this

3  

framework. Maoz Azaryahu, the foremost historian of the site, describes the complex:

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.13

Don Handelman continues the description:

The upper slopes of the mountain are carpeted with lawns, shrubs, and flower beds, and resemble most a park dotted here and there by groves and graves. The military cemetery is more forested. The overall composition derives from nineteenth-century European romanticism [with the forest as a national symbol].14

From no vantage point in the entire cemetery is it possible to see its whole landscape of death. One’s perspective is foreshortened and enclosed… one’s gaze is drawn into the clusters of graves in their terraced groves… Here the constitution of the national is that of small communities… Here the dead in their place are elevated above the living, and sacrificial death is shown as a hermeneutic of the presence of and feelings for the dead.15

Handelman notes that the layout of the gravesites at Har Herzl is “as close as secular Zionism

has come to inscribing itself topographically as a pantheon.” The leading Zionist figures and

Israeli heads of state are buried on the penultimate reaches of the complex, with the prophet

of Zionism – Herzl – laid to rest at the mountain’s apex.16 In this way, Har Herzl encodes

nationalist history topologically, through the burial location of Zionist visionaries, their

followers, and the martyrs of the State.17 The organization of the complex “produces well-

defined contextual references, specifies status hierarchies, and implies historical

progressions.”18

The gravesites themselves are even more laden with symbolic meaning and relevance

within the context of civil religion. While the graves of the Zionist leaders and heads of state

have elaborate significance, each gravestone in the military cemetery bears the same basic

design outline, conveying the equality in death of all who serve the Zionist cause.19 Carved

from Jerusalem stone,20 each monument has a simple statement describing the life, service,

and death of the fallen.21 The date and location of death place the deceased within the context

4  

of the State’s (or pre-State’s) narrative. In addition, the use of military iconography connects

the dead to the service of the State.22 The design of the gravestones also places Har Herzl

within the context of all other military cemeteries across Israel, which make use of the same

concept.23 In this light, “even a simple gravesite with the appropriate headstone… typifi[es]

the dead as national sacrifice and virtually ensures that their intimate narratives will be

articulated… with national aims.”24

In describing Har Herzl’s establishment, Azaryahu describes the three distinct

processes that converged to build up the national cemetery as a “coherent memorial space

permeated with Zionist” 25 symbolism and meaning. These were (1) the reinterment of Zionist

visionary Theodor Herzl; (2) the establishment of burial plots for Israeli national figures,

designated as The Greats of the Nation; and (3) the construction of the military cemetery

itself.26 Herzl’s presence – indeed the very act of reinterring him in Jerusalem – at the

pinnacle of the cemetery has a number of significant implications that are essential to

understanding the narrative presented by Har Herzl.

The transfer of Herzl’s body from Vienna stretches the site’s narrative back beyond

modern political Zionism, and anchors its roots in the biblical stories of Jacob and Joseph

who requested before their deaths that their bones be returned from Egypt to the Land of

Israel.27 Mirroring this biblical act concretized the symbolic foundations of Israeli nationality

through the Zionist terms of sacred place, and established the legitimacy of the state via the

myth of Herzl as the founding father and through the subsequent fulfillment of his

mythological vision.28

Theodor Herzl’s reinterment ceremony was the first state funeral in Israeli history.29

In marking the occasion, the entire complex was officially designated as “Har Herzl,”

formally enshrining it in Israeli nationhood as a national monument, and as “the central

5  

symbolic site of the state.”30 Herzl himself, as the “initiator of the national project”31 is

elevated as a source of legitimacy for the entire nation; the state didn’t come into being only

as the result of the 1948 War of Independence, but was the outgrowth of decades (indeed

centuries) of nationalist aspirations. Through his name and memory, the visions of Herzl

imbue legitimacy on a national scale.

Throughout the reinterment ceremony, the grave was sanctified symbolically as the

“epicenter of Israeli nationhood,”32 through the pouring of bags of dirt from settlements

around the newly-birthed country into the open grave. Azaryahu argues that this act

established the grave as “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.”33 The choice of the gravesite itself (along with the entire cemetery) must also be

viewed through this symbolic light, as the political status of Jerusalem in 1951 was still

unclear. Establishing the cemetery on the highest mountaintop in Jerusalem was a political

attempt by Israel to assert its claim over the entire city, which was still divided at the time.34

Through Theodor Herzl’s name and memory, Har Herzl was “infused with the Zionist myth

of national revival and restoration and [was] embedded into the symbolic fabric of Israeli

independence.”35

The imbuing of Zionist symbolism and mythology via Herzl into Israeli independence

is a central component of Israeli civil religion. Eliezer Don-Yehiya and Charles Liebman

argue that through these united symbols and myths, civil religion is used by the State to:

legitimate the social order, unite the population, and mobilize the society’s members in pursuit of its dominant political goals. Civil religion is that which is most holy and sacred in the political culture. It forges its adherents into a moral community.36

Thus Har Herzl, with this legitimacy and a community adhering to it, serves as the breeding

ground for a nationalist collective memory that would unite the multiple narratives the site

6  

weaves together.

The ideal national identity espoused by Mount Herzl is built through the confluence

of a number of key Zionist myths: the myth of Herzl as founding father, represented by his

tomb; the myth of an enduring Zionist legacy, represented by the gravesites of Zionist and

Israeli national leaders; and the myth of self-sacrifice for the Zionist cause, represented by the

military cemetery. 37 Together, these are assembled into a narrative structure that presents the

State as the living embodiment and outgrowth of more than a century of Herzlian Zionism.

Azaryahu elucidates the intentionality behind this mythic convergence, noting that the

primary thematic 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, [endorsing] the interpretation of the pre-state… history of Zionism as a mere introductory chapter to the political history of the State of Israel.38

In this light, the State is presented as the moral outgrowth of an exilic past.39 The 1964

reinterment of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a key Zionist figure and the father of Revisionist Zionism,

further bolstered the message of redemption from the exilic past. Echoing the reburial of

Herzl, Jabotinsky’s reinterment ceremony had a substantial impact on the symbolic and

thematic landscape of the cemetery.40 Along with his body, bags of earth from a number of

significant sites around Israel were placed into the grave: the Mount of Olives, Mount Zion,

the grave of Sarah Ahronson at Zikhron Yaakov, the grave of Yosef Trumpeldore at Tel Hai,

and soil from the graves of various martyrs of the Irgun. This act served to emphasize the

relevance of self-sacrifice (a motif echoed in the military cemetery; discussed later), and

assert the legitimacy of Revisionist Zionism within the national narrative.41

This narrative is not only built upon the vision of the pre-State Zionists, but on the

actions of those who sacrificed themselves in bringing the Zionist dream to fruition.

7  

Theodore Herzl is sanctified as the creator of Zionism. His Zionist compatriots are sanctified

as the implementers of Zionism.42 And nearby, at the graves of the military cemetery, are

those who are sanctified for their sacrifices for the Zionist vision.

Pierre Nora argues that the most fundamental purpose of a military cemetery is “to

stop time, to block the work of forgetting, to establish a state of things, to immortalize

death.”43 For Nora, the cemetery is a historical tool, engaged in a battle against the negative

effects of time. In juxtaposition, Har Herzl presents a more dynamic vision of the cemetery

through its understanding of collective memory. Alex Weingrod posits that history (of Nora’s

type) “refers to what is undeniably known about the past,”44 while collective memory

“emphasizes how the past is shaped or constructed in different ways.”45 This sense of

collective memory can be understood to refer to the aspects of Jewish and Israeli nationalism

that have become sacred: historical figures, symbolism, legends, myths, and public rituals

and commemorations.46 In essence, the civil religion of Zionism and Israel.

The symbolism of Herzl and his vision, as well as of the design of the cemetery itself,

are not only ideological expressions superimposed onto a national heritage site for political

reasons by the Zionist establishment; it is through the symbolism itself that communal

memory is possible.47 Why should communal memory be deemed important? For Israel, only

three years old at the establishment of Har Herzl, it was crucial on an existential level to

concretize the sense of belonging to the State, in order to encourage participation in the acts

of building and defending the State. To be sure, as Robert McKim and Jeff MacMahan argue

in their treatise on the morality of nationalism, the memory and memorializing of fallen

soldiers conveys a central symbolic message: “the state is not merely a voluntary association

but a community of fate.”48 Given the largely immigrant Jewish population, the nascent state

sought to forge a communal, nationalist identity through such a “community of fate” and

8  

communal memory of the fallen. Geoffrey White argues that war memorials and memory of

the fallen are able to achieve this goal, in that they:

work to displace fear and anxiety in part by displacing violence to the past where it may be framed and bracketed by ceremonial practices focused on sentiments of loss and sacrifice… [they] recast… those who have made the ultimate sacrifice as national heroes and work to dispel the specter of meaningless of futile death.49

Azaryahu is careful to note that memorial spaces don’t merely participate in the

production of communal memory and a sense of shared history,50 they present a specific

interpretation of history.51 To be sure, as Weingrod notes, “the past is… a vast resource that

can be manipulated and exploited.”52 Establishing a sense of communal memory is not only a

matter of imbuing nationalist ideologies within citizens for practical needs (defence and

nation-building); it also works to legitimate the authority of the state itself. Kook makes the

case that memorialization (along with national holidays and political rituals), “constitute a

focal point for memory and offer a glimpse into the logic underlying the construction of

power and legitimacy.”53 Azaryahu goes even further, arguing that “hegemonial forces in

society utilize memorializations to consolidate and legitimate their dominance, which makes

memorials into an instrument of power and authority.”54 55 Feldman echoes this thought,

noting that “spaces of memory are partitioned by political power through narratives,

architecture and commemorative ceremony,”56 and that those spaces subsequently “shape

those who move through them.”57 Just as the State used the mythology surrounding Herzl

(the man) to lend legitimacy to establishment of the site, the State used Har Herzl itself to

legitimate its own dominance and authority. This is a hallmark of Israeli and Zionist civil

religion, which is starkly juxtaposed against traditional Jewish religion. Power is transferred

from the divine to the human; rather than a transcendent God as the ultimate source of

authority, sovereignty, and legitimacy, the State and its political apparatuses reign supreme.58

9  

This dominance and authority was not only directed inward at the citizens of the

young State, but outwards to other nations as well. This was crucial, given how Israeli

nationhood was contested by neighboring countries. Handelman articulates this necessity,

drawing parallels between national identity and memory on one hand, and territorial claims

and political borders on the other:

When territory is contested space, the presence of the national must be embodied, made visible and empowered by artifacts having their own affinities to the land. In the romanticism of the modern state, territorial boundaries are borders of being within which national landscapes are sown with collective memory. Of central importance to the production of claims to natural territory is the planting of death that has national import. The sowing and commemorating of national death is central to holistic collective memory in numerous states.59

This theme of national death will be explored presently, though it should be noted now that

the construction of this collective memory is the central element in the construction of what

Kook calls a “national past.”60 But memory is not confined to the past, indeed it plays an

active role in the present identity of the State. For Handelman, constructing a national past

through acts of communal memory leads to “making citizenship national.”61 In this, he argues

that citizens are thus enabled to feel themselves “emerging naturally, historically, [and]

mythically from the land.”62

Once a nation has a shared sense of memory – once citizenship is national – it is then

able to internalize the national narrative that the State wishes to imbue within the nation. In

order to fully understand this narrative, we must also examine the role that death, as a theme,

plays within it.

It is suggested that “memorialism is the nationalization of death.”63 As we have

explored, abstract concepts such as memory, death, and identity can be co-opted by the State

for political purposes. In that light, death can be manipulated to “evoke national identity,”64

and forge an intimate connection between the individual and the collective, and between the

10  

State, its people, and its land.65 This process can be considered as “the national landscaping

of commemoration.”66 Feldman draws specific attention to the intentionality of the state in

using death to advance political goals:

[Mount Herzl] is clearly a manifestation of the cult of fallen soldiers, a cult designed to facilitate reconciliation with their death and rally people around national goals by depicting their death as an act of bravery and sacrifice for the nation. [It] strengthen[s] feelings of social solidarity among the living and remind[s] citizens of their duty to subjugate the individual will to the higher calling of the community.67

While there are other vehicles for encouraging feelings of social solidarity among citizens

and strengthening a sense of duty to the state (consider national celebrations, state

ceremonies, and propaganda, for instance), death in particular plays a strong role in

fomenting these senses. In the context of Zionist and Israeli civil religion, this intense focus

on death – particularly the death of soldiers – can be clearly understood. The “pivotal role of

the people rather than of God”68 is stressed in this civil-religious framework, and the values

of “heroism, bravery, and the attainment and preservation of independence”69 are elevated

above others.

Handelman, in his focus on the role of thematic death, labels the power of thematic

death “the absence of presence and the presence of absence,”70 observing the inverse

relationship between the absence of the dead in daily, lived life, and the presence of the dead

in national, thematic life. In considering Israeli nationalism, this relationship is significant, as

it ascribes greater importance to the whole over the part. This process “metaphorizes the

presence of absence in the shape of the national, but an absence integral to the forming, to the

presence, of the land.”71

For most of Har Herzl’s military cemetery, the dead are presented through a paradigm

of self-sacrifice. While attention is paid to circumstantial or accidental death, as well as to

victims of terrorism, the central message portrayed is that the dead willingly contributed their

11  

lives for the sake of the State. For them, the whole was clearly greater than the part.

Handelman argues this point:

…each self-sacrificed body put into the soil practices the nationalist vision of the state and its territory… enabling gravesite and cemetery to signify the holism of the national… each military gravesite, the equivalent of each other, is a microcosm of the entire nationalist landscape of self-sacrifice. Through this synecdoche the relationship of the military gravesite to the territory of the state is metonymic.72

The metonymic relationship also extends back millennia, hearkening to the biblical sacrifices

at the Temple in Jerusalem. While the Temple was where Jews brought their animal

sacrifices to God in antiquity, Har Herzl is the final place of sacrifice for those who are

themselves regarded as sacrifices.73 Here again, we find notions of Zionist civil religion that

invert the traditional authority structure, supplanting God with the State. In this paradigm, the

individual becomes a holy offering to the national, which is itself sanctified.

This notion that the individual and the national have an intimate relationship is later

evoked using cosmological prose, as Handelman describes each gravesite as a “synthetic

conjunction of space/time.” 74 Here again, we understand how Har Herzl as a whole makes

use of national death to bolster nationalist sentiments and an understanding of personal

commitments to national causes. As we shall later see, this is particularly relevant when

considering the national narrative that is evoked by the State at Har Herzl.

Two final words should be given to the thematic role that death plays at Har Herzl.

First, memorialization of the dead not only serves to enhance acceptance of self-sacrifice as

an acceptable expression of nationalism; it also draws intimate connections to the physical

Land of Israel, an important trope throughout Zionist discourse and Jewish biblical history.

Handelman describes the “iconic” relationship of the dead to the land, noting that their bodies

“sow the land with the presence of their absence.”75 He goes on to observe that there exists a

close relationship between the body and grave of the dead soldier and the land that he or she

12  

defended. Echoing themes of self-sacrifice, Handelman himself almost memorializes the

dead he investigates, saying:

As he sacrificed himself in life for the living land, so in death its earth takes him in, his presence propagating the intimacy of their relationship. The body belongs to the land, while the land is felt to acquire contours resonating with the bodies buried within it.76

This relationship is particularly crucial to consider, given the aforementioned political

uncertainty of Israel’s borders. The sacrificial dead hold power and meaning, bestowing

legitimacy upon Israel’s borders and the story of national revival that is contained within

them. This relationship is also multi-directional: national-political parallels exist between

historical and contemporary death, as through the nationalizing of death, the past may be

“recharged with the anxieties of the lived present.”77 Deaths from modern terrorism, wars,

and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can give meaning and imbue nationalist sentiments

backwards into the past, bestowing moral equivalence to vastly different struggles.78 This

fusion of a personal, communal, and national relationship with death makes Har Herzl unique

in the realm of military cemeteries and memorial sites. Death is an immanent and known

presence at the site. Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai evokes this reality artistically, writing: “We

have no unknown soldier / Nor a tomb of the unknown solider.”79

Through the framework of Zionist and Israeli civil religion, Har Herzl makes specific

use of communal memory and themes of death to evoke nationalist sentiments among

citizens and to bolster the authority of the State. But we must remember that the site is not

confined to the static memory of the dead; to be sure, Har Herzl is a dynamic locale, engaged

in a continuous narrative of Zionist redemption that speaks towards contemporary Israelis

(and, as we shall see later, diaspora) Jews. This Zionist narrative is based not only on the

physical development of Har Herzl itself, but also on the rituals and ceremonies of

commemoration that take place there.80

13  

While much of what we think of as normative Jewish religiosity consists of rituals

and ceremonies (as part of worship and home celebration of holidays) that have their basis in

hundreds or thousands of years of Jewish history, the development of a new Zionist/Israeli

civil religion raised the question of how to create meaningful ways for citizens to actualize

and access the symbolism of the established narrative. Weingrod describes this turning point

as “the thorny problem of how, if at all, to relate new secular national traditions to long-

established Jewish religious thought and ritual.”81 In conjunction with the establishment of

Har Herzl as a sacred place, the State resolved this tension by designing new rituals and

ceremonies of commemoration that – while making reference to and drawing upon the

symbolism and tropes of Jewish religious history – were basically secular in their content.82

After the establishment of Har Herzl and the reinterment of Herzl, the most

significant ceremonies to take place at the site have been the annual Yom Ha’atzmaut

(Independence Day) celebration. The central ritual therein has been the torch-lighting

ceremony, where twelve torches – representing the twelve biblical tribes of Israel – are lit by

representatives of the State in honour of their commitment to the ongoing building of the

Zionist dream. Ophir Yarden notes that “the elemental use of light and fire signifies

redemption, heroism and power as well as creation”83 Immediately, we can observe the

integration of traditional Jewish symbolism within the new civil religion: the paramount

national holiday is begun in the evening with the lighting of fire, mirroring the welcoming in

of Shabbat and Jewish festivals in the evening by the lighting of candles.84 This represents

“an intriguing phenomenon in the cultural history of Jewish national revival,”85 namely the

transvaluation of religiously sacred rituals into a secular, historical narrative. The fact that

this takes place at the “central shrine of Zionism and the State of Israel”86 reflects the key role

the site and its rituals play within the Zionist narrative.

14  

We need look no further than Chanukah for an example of the integration and

transvaluation of religious tropes into the nationalist framework. The central narrative of

Chanukah – a military struggle for freedom, clothed in the themes of rededication and

independence, and symbols of light – was directly incorporated into the Yom Ha’atzmaut

rituals. Azaryahu and Yarden describe how the torch ceremony evoked this theme:

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.87

After the Chairman of the Knesset lit the central torch on Mt. Herzl, the signal was given for… youth to light torches in settlements throughout the State. In this way the lights did not arrive at Mt Herzl but emanated from it.88

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.89

However, it must be noted that in keeping with the secularization of religiosity, the use of fire

and light was not a sign of the power of God, but of the power of the New Jew. With this

religious-to-secular transvaluation in mind, we may understand why Yarden describes Har

Herzl as a “pantheon”:

With the human-centered, activist ideologies of Zionism having blurred the distinction between man’s and God’s role in history, the Greek term pantheon, all gods, can reasonably be understood to encompass Herzl and all the political and military heroes honorably buried nearby.90

The ability of these celebratory rituals to implant the Zionist meaning of Har Herzl within the

ethos of Israeli society should not be underestimated; within a year, the Yom Ha’atzmaut

ceremony was already being referred to as a “tradition.”91 Drawing on the themes of

communal memory that permeate Har Herzl, the torch-lighting was not only a symbolic

reenactment of history; it drew direct parallels (indeed, inscribed in fire) between the Zionist

visionary himself and the people who were able to live in the land as a result of his

15  

redemptive vision.

The intentional weaving of symbolism through Har Herzl and its accompanying

rituals has been central to the development and dissemination of Zionist/Israeli civil religion

as determined by the central power figures of the State and its Zionist organizations. The

elevation of Theodor Herzl as the supreme national figure from whom light and meaning

flow out across the land, the veneration of the self-sacrificed fallen in the military ceremony,

and the rituals accompanying the memory of these figures join together to create a mythic

narrative that unites pre-State Zionist visions, the physical struggle for self-determination,

and the successful national redemption.

When examining the timeline of the Zionist narrative, there is a nadir that has

conspicuously not yet been mentioned – the Holocaust. When constructing its vast historical

mythos, the State had two options to dealing with the Holocaust. It could reject incorporating

any thematic elements of it, out of fear that this would create a narrative that based the

legitimacy of Israel on retribution for the Holocaust (rather than on an eternal Zionist dream).

Conversely, the State could contextualize the Holocaust experience within a framework of

the dominant themes of the existing Zionist narrative. Ultimately, Zionism and Israeli

nationalism would have to reconcile this tension, and Har Herzl would play a central role in

allowing memory of the Holocaust to be absorbed into Zionist and Israeli narratives of

national identity.92

In 1953, two years after the establishment of Har Herzl and just eight years after the

end of the Holocaust, a lower section of the mountain was named Har Hazikaron (The Mount

of Remembrance) and designated as the site for Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust

memorial.93

16  

One might ask why the State would choose to locate Yad Vashem – a site associated

with themes from the lowest and darkest point in Jewish and indeed human history –

specifically at Har Herzl, soaring on the physical and spiritual heights of Jerusalem. Would

not the lowest valleys of Jerusalem be a more appropriate location for such a site? Placing it

there would also give meaningful context to Har Herzl itself, physically indicating that the

Zionist redemption represents a much higher point in Jewish history. Once we understand

that the State desired to contextualize the Holocaust experience specifically within the Zionist

narrative, Har Herzl becomes clear as the obvious choice. The choice to locate Yad Vashem

on Har Herzl – albeit on a lower section of the mountain – reflects how the Holocaust was to

be interpreted in Israel: the heroism evoked by the military cemetery is of a higher magnitude

than the deaths of the Holocaust, though they are both viewed within the context of

martyrdom and are both connected to the redemptive realization of the State. This is a

narrative of a journey from “catastrophe to rebirth.”94 This notion of rebirth is even given its

own Zionist nomenclature in Hebrew: t’kuma, meaning revival.95

In this way, the just and moral fight against the Nazis was introduced syncretically

into the narrative of Har Herzl. Specifically, the struggle of the Jewish Yishuv (the pre-state

settlement of Jews in Palestine) was emphasized, to draw direct parallels between their self-

sacrifice in service of the Zionist dream, and the self-sacrifice of Israeli soldiers in service of

the realization of that dream.96 Levi Eshkol, the third Prime Minister of Israel and a member

of the Haganah pre-State paramilitary organization, in his 1964 address to the State on

Holocaust Remembrance Day elucidates this direct relationship:

The very struggle against the adversary [the Holocaust] and the victory that followed [the War of Independence] laid the foundations for the revival of our national independence [the founding of the State]. 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.97

17  

The geographical proximity between the two sites has another intentional

physical and symbolic characteristic that indicates how we are intended to view the

relationship between Holocaust and t’kuma: Yad Vashem is located on a lower side of

the mountain, turned away from the heart of the city and facing towards Europe. Har

Herzl’s graves of the Zionist visionaries and leaders of the State are turned towards

the Old City and the rest of the city.98

The contextualization of the Holocaust within Zionist mythology at Har Herzl

establishes a wider narrative stretching back to the sacred foundations of Zionism, ending

with redemption in the modern State, with a journey between through the modern era’s most

significant battle of good versus evil. This “rendered the geographical proximity between

[Har] Herzl and Yad Vashem symbolically meaningful.”99 Shaul Kelner describes how the

interplay of Holocaust martyrdom and Zionist mythology were by design incorporated into

one another:

Sitting in juxtaposition to one another, two distinct sets of partially overlapping events, spread out in one case over a decade and in the other over a century, and taking place in different parts of the world, are not only each framed as coherent stories occurring in unified historical eras, but are also presented as elements in an eschatology of destruction and rebirth.100

Through this eschatology, meaning is simultaneously bestowed both on the destruction of

European Jewry and the outcome of the Zionist dream: the martyrs of the Holocaust did not

die in vain, and the State of Israel itself is redeemed as the new center of the Jewish world.101

We have seen how Har Herzl (and its subsequent relationship with Yad Vashem) is

actively used by the State to present and promote a vision of national identity based on a

tightly woven Zionist narrative. Given the existence of an official, statist version of

communal memory, it is easy to imagine that Har Herzl may indeed be a version of Nora’s

lieux de memoire: a historical site where memory is meant to be viewed like a painting, rather

18  

than experienced fully. To be sure, Feldman observes that “military cemeteries have often

been seen as portraying a static… memory.”102 However, communal memories – particularly

those related to themes of national death – must evolve and transform in order to be

perceived as continually relevant over time.103 Akin to the lives of people themselves and

time itself, physical space is dynamic. Thus, Har Herzl is not, as Nora might suggest, a site

where memory is statically confined to the historical; it is not a “shell left stranded on the

shore as the tide of living memory recedes.”104 Rather, Har Herzl is engaged in a dynamic,

ongoing relationship with the citizens of the State.

Earlier, we explored Handelman’s notion of the role communal memory plays in

making citizenship national;105 the idea that seeing oneself as having emerged as part of a

national narrative is a significant component of feeling connected to the State and its larger

mission. Central to the success of this schema is for the State to enable people to have

“morphic affinities”106 with the State and its national institutions, and to imbue their own

meaning within the experiences had at such national landscapes as Har Herzl. As we have

seen, this is made possible through the symbolic and mythic landscape that is constructed as

well as through the new rituals and traditions created to mobilize the past in service of the

present.107 In these ways, a civil religion is developed out of a “complex and nuanced

dialogue of deliberation,”108 resulting in a unique and meaningful dynamism.

Three key events in the life of the State shed light on how Har Herzl (and the

nationalist narrative contained therein) continues to evolve dynamically to allow citizens to

map their own lived experience onto the site: the reunification of Jerusalem and the regained

access to the Western Wall after the 1967 Six-Day War; the 1995 assassination of Prime

Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his burial at Har Herzl; and the terrorism of the Second Intifada

and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the start of the 21st Century. Each of these

19  

events highlights the dynamism of Har Herzl and the ability of visitors to create meaning and

an understanding of the past that is relevant to their personal lives and experiences.

The Six-Day War resulted in a remarkable change to the national landscape of Israel,

both through the physical expansion of the State’s borders, as well as through the expansion

of national identity that took place following the dramatic victory. Regaining access to

ancient biblical sites of great significance to Judaism bolstered the sense of national

legitimacy, through the unification of abstract communal memory with physically palpable

sites. Memories could now be touched and accessed tangibly. Most significant was the

regaining of access to the Western Wall109 and the subsequent restoration of its “traditional

function as a national pilgrimage site.”110 Following the war, the opening ceremony of Yom

Hazikaron (Remembrance Day for the Fallen), which had traditionally taken place at Har

Herzl, was moved to the Western Wall. Far from reducing the national significance of Har

Herzl, this created a “temporal proximity [that]… reinforces the notion that the two sites are

closely related in the framework of Israeli patriotism.”111 While the Western Wall would

come to be a site of immense religious importance in the State’s national narrative, Har Herzl

evolved to take on the role of a “secular-national alternative,”112 remaining true to its roots as

part of Zionist civil religion. Each site offers a variation on an eschatological theme: For the

Western Wall, emblematic of the Temple which once stood on its site, the redeemer of the

people is God. For Har Herzl, emblematic of the New Jews who are enshrined there, the

redeemer of the people is the people itself. To this day, each of these narrative variations is

found within the collective Israeli/Zionist national identity.

Yitzhak Rabin’s burial at Har Herzl once again brought the site to the forefront of

both Israel’s and the world’s attention. Following the horrific tragedy of his assassination,

Rabin’s grave became a site of pilgrimage that was “infused with extraordinary symbolic

20  

meaning as the national center of mourning and remembrance.”113 For Israelis, the immediate

acts of pilgrimage by the thousands to Rabin’s gravesite “reaffirmed the relevance of [Har]

Herzl as a national institution.”114 The assassination of Rabin marked not only the death of a

great national leader – one who would become enshrined among Har Herzl’s Greats of the

Nation – but also the assassination of part of the narrative which Rabin represented: the peace

process, which has since all but disappeared from national public discourse, save for a few,

minor, failed resurgences. As a result, Rabin’s gravesite has evolved to become not only a

memorial to the national leader himself, but also to the narrative of peace which he typified.

This mythic phenomenon is evinced through the ritual artifacts that are placed there to this

day: notes and prayers for peace, rocks and stones emblazoned with slogans and symbols of

peace, and papers with the lyrics of Shir L’Shalom, the song that Rabin had a copy of in his

pocket when he was assassinated. These symbolic hybrids of traditional religion and civil

religion all contribute to the evolution of Har Herzl as a dynamic site that responds to the

collective needs of Israelis.

More recently, most significantly throughout the Second Intifada, the national

response to death in Israel has undergone a transformation, with the traditional history of war

between established countries evolving into a continual battle against the amorphous,

borderless entity that is terrorism. Confronting a tenuous present, where death could now

come unexpectedly on the street, rather than expectedly on the front lines of a battle, notions

of heroism, victimhood, and memorialization all underwent a change.115 Heroism and

memorialization were uniquely democratized, with the blurring of the lines between civilian

and military victimhood. With the memorialization and burial of victims of terror at Har

Herzl, this contemporary aspect of Israeli society was to be incorporated into the larger

Zionist narrative; while the murdered may not have been actively battling for the Zionist

cause, their martyrdom attests to the ongoing existential struggle of the State. Faced with

21  

random and bewildering death, rather than the heroic and self-sacrificial death of the past,

“the interests and needs of the present… mold and make use of the past in order to influence

the present.”116 Intifada terrorism, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and more contemporary

battles against terrorist organizations are all fodder to be framed within the larger historical

context of the Zionist narrative: the redemption of 1948 was not a static event confined to the

past, it is an ongoing event, requiring the redeeming efforts of all citizens. The death from the

terrorism of the Second Intifada thus give mythological meaning to the Zionist narrative, and

in exchange, through memorialization at Har Herzl, meaning is given to otherwise potentially

meaningless death.

Discussing pilgrimages to Israel, Maurice Halbwachs, the French sociologist

responsible for developing the concept of collective memory, notes that a group visiting

Israel will not only be impacted by the space around it, but will also in turn “transform the

space into which it has been inserted.”117 This dynamism of Har Herzl places a significant

role in the site’s ability to involve in its narrative those beyond the geographical borders of

Israel. The two-way relationship between space and specimen, between site and visitor is

unique among memorial sites, in that it involves more than just the citizens of the State. Jews

from the diaspora are also bound up in the Zionist narrative through the mythos of Har Herzl.

We can understand this relationship between Israel and world Jewry through the very

incorporation of Yad Vashem and the Holocaust into the mount’s mythos: through the

sacrifice of the diaspora, redemption was ultimately achieved in the State.118 But, like much

of Har Herzl, we need not remain confined to historical events to understand this relationship.

It is the rise of contemporary organized educational travel to Israel (henceforth referred to as

Israel Experiences), particularly that of Taglit-Birthright Israel and Jewish high school

pilgrimages, which has had the greatest impact on the ability of Har Herzl to incorporate

diaspora Jewry into its presented narrative.

22  

Sociologists of American Jewry, Barry Chazan and Leonard Saxe, have observed that

educational visits to cemeteries are a unique part of Israel Experiences, and that organized

visits to Har Herzl present a well-defined message of how diaspora Jews are to understand

the narrative presented there.119 Much of the pedagogy of these experiences focuses on

exposing young North American Jews to “authentic” aspects of Israeli society, framed within

the context of establishing a personal relationship with Israel and understanding how these

experiences can help define their Jewish lives at home in North America. That Israel

Experience organizers view Har Herzl as playing a role in this pedagogy, and that they do not

“shy away from the canonical narratives about Israel,”120 indicates an understanding that Har

Herzl does not merely present a Israeli narrative, but also has a distinct role in authentic

identity formation for all Jews.

At first glance, the notion that contemporary young North American Jews would

understand the immensity of the heroic self-sacrifice of Israel’s citizenry in service of Herzl’s

vision of redemption seems dubious. Kelner pointedly notes that these experiences of death

are entirely remote from the lives of this demographic.121 The juxtaposition between the

authentic themes of death that are presented at Herzl and the notion of death that most young

North American Jews are acquainted with is stark:

Authentic Jewish death happens over there, in Europe or Israel, back then, during the rule of the Nazis, and to them, those Jews who have the good misfortune of still living in societies where one’s fate remains bound to the fact that one is a Jew.122

Kelner describes this spectrum of understanding death as between the “holism” of Israeli

death, with the “fragmented individualism” of American death.123 But it is precisely this

different understanding of death that has the ability to involve diaspora Jews – holistically –

in the Zionist narrative. Examining the structure and content of the experiences at Har Herzl,

we can begin to understand how this is accomplished.

23  

Rather than experiencing the vast “forest” of death at the military cemetery, Israel

Experience groups focus on the “trees,” and are introduced to individual stories of the dead,

many of the same age and background as those in the group.124 Throughout the visit, tour

guides (also known as tour educators) emphasize the meaningful and accessible themes of the

site: heroism, the diversity of countries from which the early Zionists came, self-sacrifice in

service of a greater cause, and the particular role that youth played in realizing the Zionist

dream.125 Chazan and Saxe have observed that the visit to Mount Herzl is often the climax of

the Israel Experience, in that it unites many of the themes of the greater experience in Israel:

“pathos, emotion, and complexity [of Israel].”126 Consider how one tour educator framed the

visit for his/her group upon entering Har Herzl:

You are entering a holy place – a place that memorializes young people whose lives were cut short. This cemetery is about all of us, it’s about people, and it’s about people our age. It’s about our fathers, uncles, cousins, brothers, and sisters. It’s about people who should have been here with you on the bus today but aren’t.127

The context of the site is deliberately understood in the first person, using the words “us” and

“our,” and framed in terms of a familial relationship. This sense of family is bolstered by the

accompaniment of (living) Israelis – often active-duty soldiers - who play a central role in

Israel Experiences, particularly during the visit to Har Herzl. At the site, the Israelis, who

have donned their military uniforms, will discuss their friends or relatives who may have died

in service of the State. The following account from an Israeli who took part in such an

experience is illustrative of this power:

I spoke about Goni Hernick (of blessed memory) who was the commander of the Golani commando unit and was killed during the incursion to the Beaufort fortress. After that, everyone came to us crying and thanked us for the stories. It was a moving moment.128

24  

The power of the interaction between young diaspora Jews and these stories cannot be

understated. Consider also this account of how Har Herzl was able to bring together the entire

Israel experience for one group of Birthright participants:

His group had been guided by a staffer who discussed his brother, lost in a military operation and buried at the cemetery. Although hearing such a story might be expected to make the distance between Diaspora and Israeli Jews seem even greater, it had the opposite effect on these participants. The mechanism was simply to make history personal – less about events and more about families and relationships.129 (161)

The personal meaning evoked during these experiences helps mitigate the distance North

Americans have from the Israeli understanding of death. It is through these emotional –

specifically personal – encounters that North Americans are able to feel “the profound sense

that they [are] in touch with the essence or ‘soul’ of Israel.”130 This is the crux of Har Herzl’s

ability to weave young Jews into its Zionist narrative and mythology. These experiences

could not take place elsewhere in Israel, certainly not in a hotel conference room or in a circle

around a campfire. They are dependent upon the bodily reenactment of the Zionist narrative

within the cemetery, which enables ideas about identity, familial belonging, heroism, and the

duty to serve a greater cause to be made concrete.131 Through their visit, participants

associate the individual stories and personal meaning within the wider framework of the

Zionist narrative presented at Har Herzl. Indeed, after having these powerful emotional

experiences within the cemetery, participants ascend the mountain which bears his name to

rejoice and take photos at the tomb of Herzl, the Zionist visionary. In this way, Har Herzl has

evolved to play a central role in the Jewish identity formation of young diaspora Jews, by

incorporating them into the collective and communal memory of Israelis as part of a

distinctly Zionist narrative.

In his poem, Seven Laments for the War Dead, Amichai asks his readers: “How long

can you go on building the homeland and not fall behind in the terrible three-sided race

25  

between consolation and building and death?”132 Har Herzl provides Amichai and us with an

answer to this question: the homeland is continually built through its communal memory of

death as part of the Zionist narrative. To be sure, this narrative is strongest at Har Herzl

precisely because it is a cemetery and can tap into themes of national death. Handelman

observes how “the cultural encoding of ideology, history, and knowledge… works best only

with the body of the sacrificial dead planted in the land – in the military cemetery.”133 In this

way, those who die in the present are understood to be directly connected to those who died

in the past, as part of the same ongoing work of redemption. Azaryahu draws attention to this

unique vision of 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.134

This narrative and identity are predicated upon the collective memory which Har Herzl

encompasses, and is not limited to a static conception of history or death. Through the

dynamism of the transcendent, sacred topography,135 both Israeli and diaspora Jews are

woven into the sweeping narrative of Zionist aspirations and redemption, where they are able

to see themselves as key players in the ongoing history of the Jewish people.136

26  

                                                                                                               

1 Amichai, Yehuda: A Life of Poety, 1948-1994. Harper Collins (1995). Pg 393 2 Kook, Rebecca: Changing Representations of National Identity and Political Legitimacy: Independence Day Celebrations in Israel, 1952-1998. In National Identities, Vol 7. No. 2. Taylor & Francis (2005). Pg. 152 3 Handelman, Don: Nationalism and the Israeli State: Bureaucratic Logic in Public Event. Berg (2004). Pg. 149 4 Ibid 5 Ibid 6 Ibid 7 Feldman, Jackie: Between Yad Vashem and Mt. Herzl: Changing Inscriptions of Sacrifice on Jerusalem’s “Mountain of Memory”. In Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 4. George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research (2007). Pg. 1153 8 Handelman, 148 9 Nora, Pierre: Between Memory and History. In Representations Vol. 26. University of California (1989). Pg. 12 10 Yarden, Ophir: The Sanctity of Mount Herzl and Independence Day in Israel’s Civil Religion. In Sanctity of Time and Space in Tradition and Modernity. Ed. A. Houtman, M.J.H.M. Poorthuis, J. Schwartz. Brill (1998). Pg. 325 11 Nordau, Max: Speech to Second Zionist Congress, 1898. Jewish Agency for Israel. http://bit.ly/1i1AEfQ 12 Don-Yehiya, Eliezer & Liebman, Charles S. Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and the Political Culture in the Jewish State. University of California (1983). Pg. 28 13 Azaryahu, Maoz: Mouth Herzl: The Creation of Israel’s National Cemerery. In Israel Studies, Vol. 1 No. 2. Indiana University (1996). Pg. 47 14 Handelman, Don: Nationalism and the Israeli State: Bureaucratic Logic in Public Event. Berg (2004). Pg. 98 15 Ibid, 151 16 Ibid, 98 17 Ibid 18 Azaryahu, 47 19 It should be noted that in recent years more leeway has been given to families of the deceased to determine the content of the headstone. 20 Azaryahu notes the following on the design of the headstones: “The committee in charge of the architectural design of the gravesite specifically requested that a symbolic linkage between the tomb and the [Western Wall] would be formulated in the spatial arrangement of the gravesites… 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… [corresponding] to the historical progression from national destruction to national revival. (Azaryahu, 65)  21 Weingrod, Alex: How Israeli Culture was Constructed: Memory, History and the Israeli Past. In Israel Studies, Vol 2, No. 1. Indiana University (1997). Pg. 230 22 Handelman, 152 23 Azaryahu, 59 24 Handelman, 151-152 25 Azaryahu, 59 26 Ibid, 47-48 27 Ibid, 48 28 Ibid 29 Ibid, 50 30 Kook, 157 31 Azaryahu, 69 32 Ibid, 50 33 Ibid 34 Ibid, 49 35 Ibid, 47 36 Don-Yehiya & Liebman, ix 37 Azaryahu, 68 38 Ibid, 46 39 Feldman, 1155 40 Azaryahu, 56 41 Ibid 42 Ibid, 57 43 Nora, 12

27  

                                                                                                               

44 Weingrod, 228 45 Ibid 46 Ibid, 52 47 Feldman, 1150 48 McKim, Robert & MacMahan, Jeff: The Morality of Nationalism. Oxford University (1997). Pg. 232 49 White, Geoffrey: Landscapes of Power: National Memorials and the Domestication of Affect. In City & Society, Vol. 18 No. 1. American Anthropological Association (2006). Pg. 54 50 Azaryahu, 46 51 Ibid, 47 52 Weingrod, 229 53 Kook, 152 54 Azaryahu, 46 55 While discussing it in detail is beyond the scope of this paper, Feldman describes an intriguing side-effect of this assertion of dominance and authority: “In order for the state to achieve the aims of heroic self-affirmation and legitimation, the hegemonic narrative must ignore what does not fit into the dominant story-line – especially the pasts of marginalized or contesting groups… in this case, Hirbet Hamama, the Palestinian hamlet overrun in 1948, upon which Yad Vashem was built… the former Palestinian village of Ein Karem, visible directly below… or the 1948 massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin, less than two miles away.” (Feldman, 1161) 56 Feldman, 1150 57 Ibid 58 Don-Yehiya & Liebman, 4-5 59 Handelman, 147-148 60 Kook, 153 61 Handelman, 148 62 Ibid, 147 63 Ibid, 149 64 Ibid 65 Ibid 66 Ibid 67 Feldman, 1153 68 Yarden, 344 69 Ibid 70 Handelman, 166 71 Ibid 72 Ibid, 151 73 Yarden, 345 74 Ibid, 169 75 Ibid, 150 76 Ibid 77 Feldman, 1166 78 Ibid 79 Amichai, Yehuda: We Have No Unknown Soldiers. In No Rattling of Sabers: An Anthology of Israeli War Poetry, ed. Esther Raizen. University of Texas (1995). Pg. 70-71 80 A detailed description of all of Har Herzl’s ritual ceremonies over time is beyond the scope of this analysis. Here, we focus on the symbolism of the ceremonies within the context of the sacred space developed at Har Herzl, and how these rituals make use of the site itself to disseminate a particular message as part of the Zionist narrative. 81 Weingrod, 229 82 Ibid 83 Yarden, 338-339 84 Ibid 85 Azaryahu, 47 86 Yarden, 339-340 87 Azaryahu, 54-55 88 Yarden, 340-341 89 Azaryahu 53-54 90 Yarden, 344-345 91 Ibid, 54-55

28  

                                                                                                               

92 Handelman, 168 93 Ibid, 98 94 Haß, Matthias: The Politics of Memory in Germany, Israel and the United States of America. York University CCGES/CCCEA (2004). Pg. 7 (emphasis mine) 95 Azaryahu, 68 96 Azaryahu, 60 97 Handelman, 99 98 Haß, 7 & Handelman, 98 99 Ibid, 68 100 Kelner, Shaul: Narrative Construction of Authenticity in Pilgrimage Touring. Brandeis University (2001). Pg. 16 101 Kelner, 12 102 Feldman, 1148 103 Handelman, 149 104 Feldman, 1167 105 See pg. 13 106 Handelman, 147 107 Weingrod, 229 108 Yarden 347 109 Yarden observes that the inaccessibility up until 1967 to the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem… certainly… played a role in the evolution of Mt. Herzl as alternative sacred space (Yarden, 323). Azaryahu remarks similarly that Mount Herzl represented the construction of the Third Temple – a term that in a secular-Zionist rhetoric designated the sovereign State of Israel. (Azaryahu, 65) 110 Azaryahu, 66 111 Ibid, 65-66 112 Ibid, 69 113 Ibid 114 Ibid, 62 115 Feldman, 1148-1149 116 Weingrod, 229 117 Halbwachs, Maurice: The Collective Memory. Harper & Row Colophon (1980). Pg. 2 118 Feldman, 1154 119 Chazan, Barry I. & Saxe, Leonard: Ten Days of Birthright Israel: A Journey in Young Adult Identity. UPNE (2008). Pg. 48 120 Kelner, Shaul: The impact of Israel experience Programs on Israel’s symbolic meaning. In Contemporary Jewry, Vol. 24, No 1. Springer Netherlands (2003). Pg 130 121 Kelner (Narrative Construction), 16 122 Ibid 123 Ibid 124 Chazan & Saxe, 48 125 Ibid 126 Ibid 127 Ibid, 83-84 128 Hecht, Shahar; Mittelberg, David; Saxe, Leonard; Sasson, Theodore. Guest-Host Encounters in Diaspora-Heritage Tourism: The Taglit-Birthright Israel Mifgash. In Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education: Studies of Migration, Integration, Equity, and Cultural Survival. Routledge (2011). Pg. 184 129 Chazan, 161 130 Ibid, 189 131 Ibid, 161 132 Amichai, Yehuda: The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. University of California (2013). Pg. 94-95 133 Handelman, 149-150 (emphasis mine) 134 Azaryahu, 68-69 135 Ibid, 47