Schneur Simha, the former deputy director general of the Education Ministry, was in the City of David outside the Old City of Jerusalem last July when he realized he was close to a long lost relative . While drinking coffee with members of the Elad organization, which operates the site, he related that his grandfather, after whom he had been named, was buried on the Mount of Olives opposite where they were sitting but that he had never seen his grave since the area was lost after the War of Independence.
Simha was not aware that Elad was in the midst of a vast project to map the graves on the mountain.
The group finished drinking coffee and went across to the slopes of the mount to search for the grave. The only clues they had were notes from the book of graves held by the Parnases, a family of Jerusalem undertakers. The book records the burials on the Mount of Olives over the past three centuries.
Read the full story at HAARETZ.com.
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