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| Alleged tomb of Rav Ashi, on the Israel Lebanon border |
This article—based extensively on the research by Professors Shai Sekunda and Isaac Hershkowitz—examines the historical accuracy of some popular gravesites attributed to biblical figures and great rabbis. Many thousands of fervent worshippers flock to these sites, and the question is: Are the righteous Tzadikim who are claimed to be buried there really buried there, and if not, does it matter? We shall discuss a number of these purported burial sites, including those of Rav Ashi on Mount Shinan, R. Shimon bar Yochai in Meron and the biblical Binyamin in Jerusalem.
Rav Ashi (352-472 CE)
Rav Ashi was a sixth-generation Babylonian Amora (rabbi of the Gemara period). He is best known for re-establishing the Talmudic academy at Sura after the passing of Rav Chisda in 309 CE, and for editing the Talmud together with Ravina (who is difficult to identify because there was Ravina I and Ravina II, רבינא האחרון).
Rav Ashi is believed by many—particularly Breslovers—to be buried on the top of Mount Shinan, just outside Israel’s northernmost city of Kiryat Shemona, close to the Lebanese border. This burial site of Rav Ashi, however, is severely disputed by the Lebanese, who claim it is the grave of Sheikh Abbad, the sixteenth-century founder of the Shi’ite movement in Lebanon. The site became so contentious that in 2000, the United Nations established the border fence line to pass directly in the middle of the grave, with Jews praying on one side and Muslims on the other.
We know very little about Rav Ashi’s life and even less about his death. Sekunda—an acclaimed scholar of the Babylonian Talmud—maintains that it is most likely that Rav Ashi was buried in or near the Talmudic academy in Sura, which today is in southern Iraq:
“Rav Ashi’s bones probably lie buried a thousand kilometers away...” (Sekunda 2025:39).
The fact is that there is no mention of him being buried in northern Israel until as late as the fifteenth century—a thousand years after his passing—when he is mentioned in a travelogue. But even there, Rav Ashi is not said to be buried on Mount Shinan. Instead, another site is located 13 kilometres away and close to the Banias stream. And even the burial site itself on Mount Shinan has had conflicting signage claiming it to be the shrine of his son, Mar bar Rav Ashi. The question is whether the grave belongs to Rav Ashi, his son, Mar, or the Shi’ite Sheikh Abbad.
The first published reference to Rav Ashi being buried specifically on Mount Shinan appeared suddenly in 1972. The archaeologist, Zvi Ilan, just happened to see a new sign pointing to Rav Ashi’s tomb while hiking in the Galilee. Then, in 1981, a Yiddish pamphlet identifying Mount Shinan as the grave of Rav Ashi was published by the ‘Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves.’
Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves
There may be some degree of politicking taking place because:
“The aim of the Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves is to protect Jewish burial grounds from secular Israeli politicians, real estate developers, and archaeologists” (Sekunda 2025:37).
According to Sekunda, there is sometimes a tendency to ‘capture’ sites and then build substantial edifices around them. The Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves admits to this in their own journal:
“A pile of stones and an abandoned cave won’t prevent the brazen members of our nation from destroying [the graves]. But a large and solid building will, with God’s help, prevent them from realizing their evil designs” (The Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves).
Instead of critical historical research, the Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves appears to be “creating facts on the ground” (Sekunda 2025:37). The council not only rejects the conventions of archaeology and historical scholarship but actively resists them—relying instead on its own unique ‘historical’ methods to determine burial locations. The Council claims that it bases its determinations on:
“tens of books and tens of photographs of early editions and old manuscripts regarding the holy sites” (The Council for the Protection of Ancestral Graves).
The problem is that these include consulting sometimes conflicting oral traditions and old books like the fifteenth-century travelogue, as mentioned, which ironically locates Rav Ashi’s grave 13 kilometres off target.
Petachiah of Regensburg
An even older Hebrew source, the twelfth-century travelogue of Petachiah of Regensburg, identifies the location of Jewish shrines. Petachiah, a disciple of R. Yehudah heChasid—a founder of the Chassidei Ashkenaz—travelled with his mentor, who later played a direct role in shaping Petachiah’s travel notes into the final text (Adler 2016). When Petachia arrived in Babylonia, he was given a letter of introduction by a Babylonian Rosh Yeshiva, which requested:
“[I]n every place which [Petachiah] arrives you should guide him and show him the burial places of the sages and saints” (cited by Sekunda 2025:37).
When he arrived in the Holy Land, Petachia was guided by Arab Muslims who showed him where the Jewish sages were buried. Petachia describes an annual pilgrimage to the Prophet Ezekiel’s tomb, which he witnessed. It took place on the Festival of Sukkot with tens of thousands attending. The attendees were both Jews and Muslims, many of whom came to pray for fertility. Sekunda also describes what he calls “a robust shrine economy” flourishing across many of these sacred sites, sustained by the steady flow of pilgrim donations.
When one actually consults these "tens of books" and "old manuscripts," as the Council claims it does, it results in interesting finds like Mount Shinan being 13 kilometres off target for Rav Ashi; and the discovery that Jews were aided by Muslim guides in locating these graves and even sharing pilgrimages with them to some of these sites.
R. Chaim Vital (1542-1620)
In Shaar haGilgulim, his seminal work on reincarnation, R. Chaim Vital—a disciple of the Ari Zal—records the locations of nearly sixty Kivrei Tzadikim, or graves of the righteous, scattered throughout the Galilee. According to him, these sacred sites were revealed to him through mystical insight and teachings passed down from the Ari Zal, and form a spiritual map of divine presence nestled in the northern hills. He writes:
“And now I will write of the burial places of the righteous as I have received them from my teacher of blessed memory. I have already told you how he would look at and gaze at the souls of the righteous all the time and everywhere, all the more so at their gravesites, where, as is known, their souls remain. Even from afar, his eyes would perceive the soul of the righteous standing at its grave. In this way, he would learn the grave of each and every tzadik and he would speak with them and learn from them all the secrets of the Torah” (cited by Sekunda 2025:37).
R. Chaim Vital goes into great geographical detail:
“From there take the path that goes south, and there’s a road called al-medan …below that there is a valley to the east…and there is a great crevice carved in between the rocks, where Rabbi Binyamin bar Yefet is buried…in the village of Meron, there is buried Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Rabbi Eliezer, just as everyone says” (Ibid.).
On one occasion, R. Chaim Vital corrects the mistaken identification of the grave of the prophet Hoshea with that of a Tannaic grave (from the Mishna period):
“The world says that in
that cave is buried Hosea son of Beeri. But that is not the case. Rather, Rabbi
Yehoshua the Tanna is buried there, and the people mistakenly call him Hosea”.
Interestingly, Sekunda observes that R. Chaim Vital placed greater emphasis on the graves of rabbis than on those of biblical figures. He contrasts this with the modern Zionists:
“whose efforts to re-establish Jewish sovereignty in the land were inspired by biblical military heroes like Joshua” (Sekunda 2025:38).
Sekunda explains that R. Chaim Vital, like the other Kabbalists of Safed, focused on a vicarious reenactment of the depictions in the Zohar of R. Shimon bar Yochai wandering across the same Galilean pathways and landscape while teaching his students who accompanied him. [see: Kotzk Blog: 514) Kabbalah: From Obscurity to the Defining Essence of Judaism]. This gave more authenticity and authority to the notion of the Zohar emerging in the second century than being a product of twelfth-century Spain, where it appeared for the first time, a thousand years later [see Kotzk Blog: 087) MYSTERIES BEHIND THE ORIGINS OF THE ZOHAR:].
These Safed Kabbalists were also trying to identify with the Zoharic emphasis on the Shechina (G-d’s Presence described in feminine terms) being in a state of ‘exile’ from the masculine Godhead. They did this by physically imposing ‘exile’ upon themselves and wandering from place to place in the Galilean hills. Many of them had been Spanish exiles and Conversos who were expelled from their native country, and therefore personally resonated with the notion of the Shechina in exile:
“They joined her in exile by ‘exiling’ themselves through mystical wanderings in the fields and orchards. They also laid themselves down on the graves so that the soul of the saint buried there could impregnate their own [soul] and transmit his aura and teaching” (Sekunda 2025:38).
These developments culminated in a sixteenth-century Safed culture that viewed itself as a mystical reenactment of the earlier Tannaic activities associated with R. Shimon bar Yochai at the same location. As part of this spiritual revival, the gravesites of earlier Kabbalists took on heightened symbolic and cultural significance.
A Sufi connection
Arab Muslims and particularly Sufis, feature in the writings of the Kabalists of Safed as they did in Petachia’s earlier travelogue:
“These locals, like some of Petachiah’s twelfth-century informants, helped the Jewish arrivals rediscover old graves. In fact, the Galilean Muslims did more than give the kabbalists directions. They invited them on the ziyārāt—pilgrimages to regional shrines in search of blessings and illumination. This was best accomplished, it turns out, through the Sufi ritual of prostrating on the graves of dead saints to commune with the spirit of the sheikh buried there” (Sekunda 2025:38).
Kabbalists and Sufis have had an interesting association over the ages [see: Kotzk Blog: 152) RAMBAM'S ONLY SON – ANOTHER SUFI CONNECTION?).
In modern Israel, there has been a distinct increase in interest in visiting the graves of holy people since the 1970s. According to Weingrod (1990), and Ben-Ari and Bilu (1987), this began with the new Jewish immigrations of North Africa who began arriving in Israel from the 1950s:
“They brought with them to Israel the popular Muslim tradition of ziara, visiting the holy graves of holy people” (Collins-Kreiner 2009:73).
R. Shimon bar Yochai and Meron
Meron, close to Safed, is perhaps best known as the burial site of R. Shimon bar Yochai. It attracts tremendous crowds that come to commemorate the anniversary of R. Shimon’s passing on Lag baOmer, making it “the world’s largest annual Jewish gathering” (Sekunda 2025:38). In 2004, the Ministry of Religious Affairs stated that 2,000,000 visits are made to the burial site every year (Ben-Shimon 2004). These large numbers would later result in fatal consequences as pilgrims came in their masses to be at the grave site of R. Shimon on his Yarzeirt. However, as Rabbi Dr Natan Slifkin famously wrote of this gathering:
“It’s sometimes described as the day on which the person who didn’t write the Zohar didn’t die, celebrated at the place where he isn’t buried” (Slifkin 2023).[1]
The Israeli historian, Elchanan Reiner, has shown that Meron was the site of an ancient:
“pre monotheistic pilgrimage site that only came to be associated with Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai more than a thousand years after his death, so there is little reason to assume that he actually lies buried in the shrine that now bears his name, even if his presence was mystically verified five hundred years ago by Rabbi Chaim Vital” (Sekunda 2025:39).
If Reiner is correct, this would be nothing new because:
“[t]he history of religions is replete with such spatial conversions: mosques built over churches, churches over mosques, and pagan sanctuaries transformed into places of Jewish worship” (Sekunda 2025:39).
The Tomb of Benjamin in Jerusalem
A former Muslim shrine on the outskirts of Geula,
in Jerusalem, is purported to be the burial site of the biblical Benjamin, Joseph’s
son. The structure of the shrine dates back to 1251, when it was dedicated to
two of Saladin’s soldiers who fought against the Crusaders. Identifying this
site in Geula with Benjamin is difficult because:
“[t]here are at least two more sites in Israel in which Benjamin is supposed to be interred, one near Kfar Saba, in the center of the country, and another in the Galilee, making the sudden appearance of Jacob’s youngest son in Jerusalem especially puzzling” (Sekunda 2025:39).
Ignorance or politics?
Taking this matter a little further than Sekunda does, the question becomes: To what extent is the misattribution of these—and numerous other—shrines a consequence of ignorance, and to what extent does it stem from unexpected political agendas? According to Doron Bar (2008), this has a lot to do with politics. He notes that between 1948 and 1967, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs encouraged the ‘development’ of holy sites under the director-general, Rabbi Dr Shmuel Zanwil Kahana:
“Kahana's activity in rearranging the sacred sites during the 1950s and 1960s is a clear case of ‘renewing’ and ‘inventing’ a tradition, which he tried to intensify by organizing a system of religious cult and worship in the different Jewish sacred sites, most of which had not been revered before 1948…cultivating existing traditions and creating new ones, gathering myths and assembling symbolic items at the sites that embodied their sacredness for the pilgrims… Indeed, Kahana's activity in creating sacred sites in Jerusalem and other parts of the country raised bitter criticism against him. Academics and officials often complained about his actions” (Bar 2008:5).
Kahana also drew criticism from researchers like Dr Shmuel Yeivin, then head of the Israeli Department of Antiquities:
“One of the first measures Kahana applied…was to place signposts near Jewish sacred sites and roads leading to pilgrimage centers. As no systematic information regarding the Jewish sacred sites was at hand, Kahana was forced to gather information on the location of the sacred sites and the rituals that were customarily performed there. The data were gathered from locals: rabbis, guides, and teachers. The joint enterprise between the MRA [Ministry of Religious Affairs] and local initiatives, whether private people who were involved in the identification and development of the sacred sites, or various local religious associations, brought an enormous change in the Jewish sacred sites map and a sharp increase in the number of sacred sites that were now identified and introduced to wider sectors of the Israeli public” (Bar 2008:6).
The politics of Place
According to Bar, many sites were appropriated by Kahana, like the tomb of Sheikh Gherib, near Beit Shemesh, which was transformed into the tomb of Solomon:
“One of the more outstanding examples for this phenomenon was the Galilee, where dozens of tombs ascribed to Talmudic figures were developed into some of the more important pilgrimage destinations during the 1950s and I960s” (Bar 2008:11).
Another example of Kahana’s creativity related to
the city of Eilat, where:
“Kahana tried to promote a
pilgrimage during the feast of Passover, marking the crossing of the Red Sea by
Moses and the People of Israel following the Exodus from Egypt” (Bar 2008:13).
Bar explains that:
“[i]n most cases, the graves were attributed to the sacred figures with no convincing historic or archaeological basis. They were ascribed to figures from Jewish mythology and history, from biblical figures through Talmudic personages, down to Kabbalists from all ages. During the 1950s and 1960s, these elevated figures became part of the lexicon of sanctity in the State of Israel once their assumed grave sites were recognized and re-identified, making these sacred sites prime pilgrimage attractions” (Bar 2008:14).
It is not just Bar who has written on Kahana and his enterprises, but others like Professor Isaac Hershkowitz (2024) have dealt with this phenomenon as well. Hershkowitz goes into the mystical and messianic underpinnings of Kahana’s ideology, and writes that after his immigration from Poland to Palestine in 1940, he integrated himself:
“into the political and rabbinic circles of religious Zionism…He is considered the founder and coordinator of the extensive religious activities on Mount Zion, Mount Meron, and elsewhere…Kahana strove to give Mount Zion a unique religious and national myth, as a replacement for the Temple Mount, which was in Jordanian hands…The same is true of the rituals on Mount Meron…Kahana had a significant impact on the public religious spheres of the State of Israel in its first decades” (Hershkowitz 2024:197).
Kahana innovated a most unusual mystical, candlelight and “temple-like ceremony” (Hershkowitz 2024:209) on Mount Zion at midnight—next to the large furnace once used for ashes of Holocaust victims—which was now symbolically treated as a new altar.
The furnace on Mount Zion may be seen to correspond to a messianic biblical verse referring to the fall of Assyria:
נְאֻם־ה׳
אֲשֶׁר־א֥וּר לוֹ֙ בְּצִיּ֔וֹן וְתַנּ֥וּר ל֖וֹ בִּירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם
God, who has a fire in Zion, who has an oven in Jerusalem, declares…” (Isaiah 31:9).
This strange ceremony persisted regularly during Israel’s first two decades. It commemorated the holy books that were destroyed during the Holocaust. The small group present was asked to imagine burning Torah scrolls and other holy books as martyrs whose souls are never consumed, and a new messianic Torah would emerge from their ashes. The lost books became the “price that must be paid in order to access redemption” (Herskowitz 2024:213):
“The attempt to experience the equivalent of the revelation on Mount Sinai, and therefore the line referring to a new Torah in return for the burned scrolls, is emphasized and reverberates strongly…these reflect Kahana’s attempt to institute a liturgy with theurgic hues, while resisting impure forces…it is a place where the spirit of the nation can be reborn, representing the new Temple…The death of the Jews, the death of their books, is also the death of the exile” (Hershkowitz 2024:210-211).
There were only about twenty attendees at this ceremony on Mount Zion, which served as a substitute for the Temple. It was a modest ceremony, but in Kahane’s imagination it had “cosmic and national significance”:
“[T]he crematorium represents the symbolic substitute for the altar, and a small group of attendants act as priests who perform their rites in the Temple without external disturbances. Through this symbolic framework, they defend the people of Israel from external influences and preserve their spiritual virtues. This is an attempt to achieve redemption, not just for the individuals who were killed and the culture that was destroyed, but also for the nation that emerged from the ashes of the victims and their literature” (Hershkowitz 2024:212).
Kahane’s mystical ceremony on Mount Zion drew criticism from a member of the board of directors of Yad Vashem, who said:
“I believe that idolatry is practiced on Mount Zion” (Segev 1991:442).
Kahana’s deeply mystical and theurgic ceremony hints at his broader ambition: to reshape the national psyche through spiritual means. This may also shed light on his persistent efforts to expand and innovate the network of sacred burial sites across Israel
Analysis
Sekunda shares a personal anecdote about his recent visit with friends to Meron on Lag baOmer, where he stayed up throughout the night in the presence of Breslovers doing Hitbodedut (meditation). He describes his conflicting sentiments:
“I am a poor meditator, and my mind wanders, finally settling on the ahistoricity of the shrines and whether it matters…I’m not sure what to do with this thought, especially since learning the Zohar at Meron felt incredibly, vividly meaningful to me. Then again, I know that the Zohar itself was not written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai and also postdates him by more than a thousand years” (Sekunda 2025:39).
The question is: Does it matter if these locations and narratives do not always resonate with historic reality? There may be two ways to look at this:
Some might argue that they serve as important symbols of the past, present and future. People need symbols. Emphasising this, the anthropologist Yoram Bilu notes that in some Israeli towns, there are shrines dedicated to Moroccan Tzaddikim:
“as if the dead saints had
moved with their immigrant devotees from Morocco” (Sekunda 2025:39).
For others, introducing new beliefs beyond the
bounds of Halachic law and critical history raises concerns—not merely
about their legitimacy, but about whether faith should evolve to the point that
it voluntarily transcends the limits of history, reason, and sound judgment. This
concern is further compounded by the plausible presence of subtle but significant
political undercurrents.
Appendix
The following are just a few examples of well-known gravesites that are also disputed. There are very many others:
·
R. Akiva’s grave in
Tiberius was only attributed centuries after his death, and there is no
contemporary record.
·
Maimonides’ grave in
Tiberius is based on legend because he died in Fustat, Egypt. There are
accounts of his remains being taken to the Holy Land.
·
R. Meir Baal haNes in Tiberius
is based on later mystical traditions.
·
R. Yehuda haNasi in Beir
Shearim is disputed, although the complex is real.
·
R. Yochanan ben Zakkai in
Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives was only established
during the mediaeval period,
and there is no contemporary evidence.
·
The prophet Samuel near Jerusalem
dates to the Byzantine era, and there is no biblical or archaeological evidence.
·
R. Elazar ben Arach in Amuka, Galilee, is based on mystical traditions,
not historical sources.
·
R. Yosi haGelili in Dalton, Galilee, is based on local tradition and
not historical sources.
·
R. Hillel haZaken in Meron
is not based on historical sources.
·
R. Chanina ben Dosa in
Arraba, Galilee, is based on localmtraditioin not historical sources.
·
R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is claimed to be buried in both Lod and
Galilee.
·
R. Yishmael ben Elisha near Tiberius is based on mystical traditions
and not historical sources.
·
R. Chiya and his sons in Kefar Tavor were established during the mediaeval
period, and there is no contemporary evidence.
·
R. Pinchas ben Yair near Meron is linked to R. Shiman bar Yochai, and has
no historical sources.
·
R. Yosi ben Kisma, near Safed, is from the Safed mystical period and
has no historical sources.
·
R. Elazar ben Shamua in Galilee is based on local tradition and has no
historical sources.
·
R. Nachun Ish Gamzu in Safed is linked to Aggadic stories but has no
historical sources.
·
R. Yehoshua ben Levi is claimed to be in both Lod and Galilee.
Further Reading
Kotzk
Blog: 280) VISITING GRAVES:
Bibliography
Sekunda, S., 2025, Visiting the Graves of the
Righteous: Inns of Molten Blue, Jewish Review of Books, Summer 2025,
36-39.
Hershkowitz, I., 2024, ‘A Memorial Day for the Books Annihilated
in the Holocaust: History and Reason’, Review of Rabbinic Judaism, vol.
27, no. 2, 193-213.
Adler, E. N., 2016, Jewish Travellers in the
Middle Ages, Dover Publications, New York.
Weingrod, A., 1990, The Saint of Beersheba. State University of New York, New York.
Ben-Ari, E., and Bilu, Y., 1987, ‘Saints' Sanctuaries in Israeli
Development Towns: On A Mechanism of Urban Transformation’, Urban
Anthropology, vol. 15, no. 2, 243-272.
Collins-Kreiner, N., 2007, ‘Graves as Attractions:
Pilgrimage Tourism to Jewish Holy Graves in Israel’, Journal of Cultural
Geography, vol. 24, no.1, 67-89.
Ben-Shimon, 2004, Site Manager, The grave of Rabbi
Shimon Bar Yohai, representative of the Ministry of Religions.
Bar, D., 2008, ‘Reconstructing the Past: The Creation
of Jewish Sacred Space in the State of Israel, 1948–1967’, Israel
Studies, vol. 13, no. 3, 1-21.
Segev, T., 1991, The Seventh Million: The
Israelis and the Holocaust, Jerusalem.
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