Rav Abraham Isaac Kook’s Funeral Takes Place

September 2, 1935

80,000 mourners, approximately a quarter of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel at the time, line the streets of Jerusalem for the funeral of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, who had passed away the day before after battling cancer.

Kook was born in Latvia in 1865 and arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1904 becoming the rabbi in Jaffa. Atypical of most Orthodox religious leaders at the time, Kook identified with the Zionist movement, which he believed was the beginning of divine redemption, while simultaneously being critical of the movement for its singular focus on the secular revival of the Jewish people.

In 1921, he was appointed the first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of the British Mandate.
For More: JTA article about the funeral

A July 2013 editorial from Jerusalem Post reflects on Rav Abraham Isaac Kook on the day of the new Chief Rabbi elections in Israel

The David B. Keidan Collection of Digital Images from the Central Zionist Archives at Harvard has a collection of 31 images from the funeral.