Remains of Herzl’s grandparents reinterred in Jerusalem in state ceremony

Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl drew his commitment to creating a Jewish State from the deeds of his grandparents, President Isaac Herzog said Wednesday at a state ceremony marking the reinterment of their remains on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

“Dreams are not inherited in writing,” Herzog said. “They are passed down at the Shabbat table.”

The remains of Shimon and Rivka Herzl were buried next to their grandson’s grave on Mount Herzl at the ceremony, exactly 77 years after Herzl was reburied there on August 5, 1949. They were exhumed last week from their graves in Belgrade, Serbia.

During the ceremony, the couple’s coffins were covered temporarily by the same blanket that covered Theodor Herzl’s in 1949.

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. His parents’ and sister’s remains were also reinterred on the mountain at the time.

During Wednesday’s ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Herzl as “the modern Moses,” adding that he tells visiting world leaders that Herzl “created the conditions that brought us to the Promised Land.

“Herzl’s grandparents provided the roots that grew the trunk, branches, and fruits,” Netanyahu added. “Herzl instilled in us the belief that we must take our fate into our own hands.”

Herzog, meanwhile, traced how Rabbi Shimon — a humble synagogue gabbai (sexton) — absorbed the proto-Zionist teachings of Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, who led the family’s synagogue, and unwittingly set in motion a dream that his grandson would later transform into a movement.

When Alkalai’s granddaughter and Herzl’s grandson both appeared at the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, Herzog said, “It was not a coincidence, it was the product of tradition.

“Not every person gets to envision a state,” Herzog said, “but every person can be the one who carries the vision home and places it on the table of their home.”

The exhumation, which followed several years of negotiations, 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 Israel in specially designated coffins for transport.