Simeon the Just (or Shimon HaTzaddik) was a Jewish High Priest during the time of the Second Temple and one of the sages of the early Tannaic period. He is perhaps best known for his maxim, cited in the Mishnah’s Tractate Avot, “The existence of the world is contingent on three things: Torah, worship and acts of loving-kindness.”
There is an ongoing dispute as to whether the structure known as the Tomb of Simeon the Just actually houses the remains of the lustrous sage. Jewish tradition would have it that the tomb, which is located just south of the British School of Archaeology on the outskirts of the Sheikh Jerah neighborhood, is indeed genuine. Archaeologists, however, date the tomb to the early Byzantine period, centuries after Simeon the Just. As with the Tombs of the Sanhedrin, the first record of the Tomb of Simeon the Just dates back to 1235, in the writings of Rabbi Jacob the Emissary.
According to historic sources, during the Ottoman period the site was regularly used for a public festival in honor of Simeon the Just, known as the “Yehudia,” which was attended by Jews, Muslims, and Christian. Today the tomb is a pilgrimage site for mostly Jewish worshipers, some of whom come to give their three-year-old boys their first haircuts in a mystical ceremony known as “upsherin” or “chalaka.”
