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Thousands arrive to pay their final respect to Berl Katznelson
of the Jerusalem Workers' Council. An honor guard stood at attention in the room and was replaced every hour.
Thousands gathered in the square in front of the building, including workers and clerks who got the day off from their work places and members of the youth movements in their blue shirts. The blue and white flag on the central flagpole was lowered to half-mast.
The huge crowd had parted when the funeral procession departed from the National Institutions Building on its way to Tel Aviv, and
from there to the cemetery on the shores of the Kinneret, where Berl was buried. As in Jerusalem, thousands had also waited in all the other locations to bid farewell to the revered leader.
If Berl Katznelson's funeral ceremony at the National Institutions Building drew thousands, then the one held there exactly five years later, in Av 5709, August 1949, brought tens of thousands to the National Institutions' courtyard. They packed the courtyards and the surrounding streets to capacity. This was the second funeral procession for the Visionary of the State, Theodor Herzl, whose remains were brought to Israel in the summer of 1949, on the State of Israel's second year of independence.
The coffin, which was brought from Vienna, was first placed on a special stage near the building of the Knesset in Tel Aviv. In the early morning hours of August 17, 1949, the coffin set out towards Jerusalem in a military vehicle, followed by dozens of cars, passing on its way through the colonies in the south that Herzl had visited in his one visit to the Land of Israel fifty years before. At the entrance to Jerusalem, at 8:30 AM, the coffin was moved to a carriage, which moved slowly through the streets of the city towards the National Institutions Building in Rehavia.
The city was decorated in greenery and placards with biblical verses and letters of Herzl were hung up, such as "I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, O My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel," (Ezekiel 37:12) and "Upon my arrival here, Jerusalem shall be one of the most beautiful cities in the world (Herzl)".
The courtyard of the National Institutions Building was filled with IDF soldiers of all its corps. Prominent among them were the Navy personnel in their white uniforms and their honor guard surrounded the coffin when it arrived in the courtyard at 9:00 AM and placed in front of the main entrance to the National Institutions Building. The first to pass by the coffin was the Acting President, Speaker of the Knesset Yosef Sprinzak and members of the government headed by
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