Simeon the Righteous in Rabbinic Literature: A Legend Reinvented

If you should visit Jerusalem and walk northwards of the Old City towards Mt. Scopus, you will likely pass through a street named after Simeon the Righteous: Rehov Shimʿon ha-Zadik. The street is adjacent to a burial cave from the Roman-Byzantine period that was probably already in use during Second Temple times and this burial cave, according to a medieval Jewish tradition, is the final resting place of Simeon the Righteous.
Due to its medieval identification, the ancient burial cave became a holy site for Jews in both medieval and modern times and Jewish pilgrims continue to visit it year in year out. Thus, for example, the site remains a popular location for the Hasidic “halaqah” ritual, the ceremonial first haircut of three year old boys often performed on the thirty third day of the ʿOmer (shortly before the festival of Shavuot). As a well known holy Jewish site the burial cave inspired not only the name of the adjacent street but also the names of two adjoining neighborhoods that were established in 1891–1892: Shimʿon ha-Zadik and Nahalat Shimʿon. Thus, the medieval Jewish tradition which identified the burial cave as the final resting place of Simeon the Righteous influenced the naming of two neighborhoods in modern Jerusalem and transformed the burial cave into a pilgrimage site sacred in the eyes of myriads of Jews from the Middle Ages to the present.