Underground Burial in Jerusalem: 24,000 Graves, 3 Elevators
Jerusalem's Har HaMenuchot cemetery looks like municipal infrastructure from Highway 1 — until you learn the parking spaces are 24,000 graves, reached by three elevators. This episode digs into why the city had to build downward, what happened when the Mount of Olives was cut off in 1948, and why a 16th-century lease from the Islamic Waqf still governs the holiest Jewish cemetery on earth. Then it turns to the money: Israel's National Insurance Institute pays burial costs directly to the Hevra Kadisha for every person who dies in the country, but the adjacent spouse plot and the headstone are…
The skinny
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