Yad Kennedy
Memorial in Mateh Yehuda Region, Israel
Yad Kennedy (Hebrew: יד קנדי, lit. 'Kennedy memorial'), located in the Mateh Yehuda Region near Jerusalem, is a memorial to John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, who was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. The 60-foot-high (18 m) memorial is shaped like the stump of a felled tree, symbolizing a life cut short. Inside is a bronze relief of Kennedy, with an eternal flame burning in the center. It is encircled by 51 concrete columns, one for each of the 50 states in the United States plus one for Washington, D.C., the United States capital. The emblems of the states (and of the District of Columbia) are displayed on each of the columns, and the columns are separated by slim panels of glass. The monument measures approximately 250 feet (76 m) in circumference around its base, and there is space within the memorial for approximately 100 visitors at a time. The monument was built in 1966 with funds donated by American Jewish communities.
Yad Kennedy and its adjoining picnic grounds are part of the John F. Kennedy Peace Forest.
Name
The Hebrew word yad, which is used for a number of memorials in Israel (including the well-known Holocaust memorial museum Yad Vashem), comes from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 56, verse 5: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (yad vashem)."
Location
The site is located 7 miles (11 km) from downtown Jerusalem, in the same general direction as Hadassah Medical Center, on top of the highest of the Jerusalem hills, at an elevation of 825 metres (2,707 ft). The site overlooks what was at the time of the dedication the Jordanian village of Bittar (now a part of Israel's West Bank), the historic site of Betar, famous as the last stronghold of the Jewish revolt led by Simon Bar Kochba against Roman forces in 132–135 CE. The view from the parking lot has been described in the Frommer's travel guide as "breathtaking – a never-ending succession of mountains and valleys." On a clear day, the Mediterranean Sea can be seen in the direction of Tel Aviv, 40 miles (64 km) away.
The public source identifies “Yad Kennedy” as memorial in Mateh Yehuda Region, Israel. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kennedy, Memorial and Mateh.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1678179. Authority coordinates are 31.749, 35.135. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963 and 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yad Kennedy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.