Herzl’s grandparents’ remains exhumed, to be reinterred in Jerusalem next week

Shimon and Rivka Herzl’s bodies recovered from Belgrade cemetery, will be reburied next to Zionist visionary’s grave on anniversary of his own 1949 reburial

By Zev Stub

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29 July 2026, 8:40 pm

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Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.

Representatives from the World Zionist Organization, the Foreign Ministry, and ZAKA help exhume the bodies of Theodor Herzl's grandparents, Shimon and Rivka Herzl, in Belgrade, Serbia, July 29, 2026. (World Zionist Organization/ ZAKA)

The remains of the grandparents of Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl were exhumed on Wednesday from their graves in Belgrade, Serbia, in order to be brought to Israel and reinterred next week on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

The bodies of Shimon and Rivka Herzl will be buried next to their grandson’s grave on Mount Herzl in a ceremony on August 5, exactly 77 years after Herzl was reburied there in 1949. Herzl, who died in 1904, was the founder of the modern Zionist movement and is commemorated in a variety of ways throughout Israel.

The exhumation, which follows several years of negotiations, according to Hebrew media reports, was carried out under local legal and religious requirements in the presence of representatives from the World Zionist Organization, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and the emergency response organization, ZAKA. The remains were transferred to specially designated coffins for transport to Israel.

In a statement, WZO Chairman Yaakov Hagoel said that the return of Herzl’s parents “closes a historic circle.”

“Herzl’s grandfather and grandmother are finally coming to rest and to the land, alongside their grandson, in the heart of Jerusalem,” he said.

WZO Vice Chairman Dr. Yizhar Hess said the act honors Herzl’s request that he and his family be buried in Israel, adding that his grandparents “played a significant role in his childhood and in the formation of his Zionist thought.”

His parents are also buried alongside him.

Famous picture of Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the Hotel Les Trois Rois in Basel, Switzerland (photo credit: CC-PD-Mark, by Wikigamad, Wikimedia Commons) — Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the Hotel Les Trois Rois in Basel, Switzerland, 1897. (CC-PD-Mark, by Wikigamad, Wikimedia Commons)

Herzl’s grandparents are believed to have influenced his early attachment to Zionism. Shimon Herzl was a Jewish community leader in Belgrade and was close to Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, whose ideas prefigured Zionism. Shimon served as the ba’al tekiah — the ceremonial shofar blower — at Alkalai’s synagogue.

Herzl, who founded the Zionist Organization (later the WZO) in 1897, was buried in Vienna after he died of a heart ailment in 1904. In 1949, his remains were taken to Israel and reinterred on Mount Herzl, named in his honor.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog are expected to attend the ceremony next week.