This famous mountain, referred to in the Talmud as Har HaMishchah (Mount of Oil), was where the red heifer was slaughtered and burned so that its ashes could be used in purifying Jews who had become ritually impure through contact with the dead. Ironically, it is today most identified with the dead because its slope east of the Temple Mount contains the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world.

It is on this mountain where the Redeemer’s feet shall stand, says the Prophet Zechariyah (Zechariyah 14:1-4) in his vision of the climactic battle which will take place at the end of days when all the nations gather to make war against Jerusalem, and “Har HaZeitim shall be split along the middle by a great valley running from east to west.”

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