Kiryat Anavim is a kibbutz in the Jerusalem Corridor, on the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, that played a critical role in the 1948 War of Independence as one of the forward positions defending the approach to the capital. The kibbutz, founded in 1920, sits on a hilltop surrounded by the forests of the Jerusalem hills, and its military cemetery contains the graves of fighters who fell defending the road to Jerusalem during the siege of 1948.
The 1948 Siege
During the War of Independence, the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem passed through a narrow corridor between Arab-held villages, and convoys attempting to reach besieged Jerusalem were regularly ambushed. Kiryat Anavim, positioned on the high ground overlooking the road, served as a forward base for Palmach fighters defending the convoys. The battles in the Jerusalem Corridor, fought for every hilltop and every bend in the road, were among the bloodiest of the war, and the military cemetery at Kiryat Anavim holds the graves of dozens of young fighters who died in these engagements.
The Cemetery
The military cemetery is set among pine trees on the kibbutz grounds, with simple stone markers and a memorial wall. Many of the graves belong to fighters in their teens and early twenties, Palmach members who came from kibbutzim across the country to fight for the road to Jerusalem. The cemetery is a quieter, more intimate alternative to the large national cemeteries, and the personal scale of the memorial makes the losses feel individual rather than statistical.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
Kiryat Anavim tells the story of the convoys and the fighters who died keeping the road to Jerusalem open. Hoshen Tours includes it alongside the Castel and Latrun for groups interested in the 1948 battle for Jerusalem.