The President of the Republika Srpska, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has complied with the request of the Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, and will assist in raising the bones of Grandpa Zeev Herzl's grandparents to Israel.
Zelka Zwyanovic, president of the Republika Srpska, visited Mount Herzl earlier this week.
During her visit, the President laid a wreath at Herzl's grave, toured the Herzl Museum, received an explanation of the state contract's vision and finally signed a guest book, in which presidents and heads of state who visit the state contract's tomb sign.
During the visit, Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Organization, said that Herzl's grandparents, from whom he drew the Zionist idea, were buried in her country, and asked the president to help bring their bones to Israel.
Zwyanovich and Hagoel, Photo: David Prati
After the establishment of the state, Herzl's remains were exhumed from his tomb in Vienna and reburied in August 1949 on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, with his parents and sister by his side.
Many years later, in September 2006, the bones of his two children were also brought to Israel, and buried next to those of their father.
In 2007, the remains of Herzl's only grandson, Stephen Theodor Norman, were raised from a Washington cemetery for burial in Jerusalem.
Herzl's paternal grandparents, who inspired his Zionist conception, remained buried in the small cemetery in the town of Zemun, which is on the outskirts of the Serbian capital Belgrade.
Rabbi Shimon Aryeh (Leib) Herzl, Herzl's grandfather, was born in 1805, and was an ultra-Orthodox Jew who served as a rabbi in various priesthoods in the Zemlin community in Serbia (present-day Zemun).
Rabbi Shimon was enthusiastic about the idea of Zionism, and was active in his community for the idea of establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.
The town's spiritual leader, Rabbi Yehuda Shlomo Alkalay of Zemlin, one of the forerunners of Zionism, influenced Herzl's grandfather and guided him to the vision of political Zionism.
Early Zionist aspirations
During his visits to Budapest he enthusiastically recounted the Zionist aspirations of the great rabbi of Zemlin, including his call for the settlement of Eretz Israel, and his proposals, many of which inspired Herzl's later writings.
Grandfather Shimon Leib Herzl was one of the members of the community and the most devoted disciple of Rabbi Alkalay, and one of his most influential.
He died in 1879 and was buried in the Jewish section of the cemetery at the time.
Rebecca Herzl, Herzl's grandmother, who was born in 1809 and died in 1888, is also buried in the Jewish section of the cemetery at the time.
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