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Tisha b’Av

I never really heard of Tisha b’Av when I was growing up. Although my family celebrated major Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Passover, I was totally unfamiliar with the lesser known holidays of Shemini Atzeret, Tisha b’Av and Lag b’Omer.

It wasn’t until my junior year in college at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem that I learned about Tisha b’Av, a holiday that was jokingly called Tushie-Bottom by my irreverent friends.

Paradoxically, our lightheartedness failed to appreciate that Tisha b’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar — the day which officially commemorates national Jewish mourning.

Tisha b’Av is the anniversary of the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE by the Romans.

With an uncanny sense of historic irony, it is also the date of some of the worst disasters and expulsions that occurred in Jewish history.

In 1190, Tisha b’Av marked the day that the Jews of York, England, were slaughtered; it was also the day Jews were expelled from England 100 years later.
It commemorated the imprisonment of the Jews in France in 1305 and marked the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

Italy ghettoized its Florence Jews on Tisha b’Av in 1571 and Austria forced its Jews out of Vienna in 1670.

The devastating pattern of deportation and death continued into the modern age beginning with Russia’s mobilization towards WW I on the ninth of Av, which led to the expulsion of all Jews from the border provinces a year later.

The Nazis took pleasure in organizing murderous actions against the Jewish community on Tisha b’Av, such as commencing the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to the death camps at Treblinka.

The Jewish religious responses to these events were identical to those that are followed when a family member dies.

Extensive mourning rituals were developed by the Talmudic rabbis to help the community deal with the profound grief and loss they would continue to experience from losing their homes, families and communities.

Today, more than 2,500 years after the destruction of the First Temple, we continue to re-enact the feelings of our ancestors by engaging in traditional mourning practices such as fasting and restricting our physical comfort by not bathing, not wearing leather shoes, makeup or perfume and not engaging in intimate relations.

The public reading of Lamentations occurs in synagogues while congregants sit on the floor or low stools in the traditional style of mourners.

In some ways, Tisha b’Av is the holiday that reminds us that the Jewish way of life –– its traditions, practices, culture and land –– have been targeted for extinction since the beginning of Jewish time. History bears witness to a multiplicity of efforts to eradicate the heart and soul of the Jewish people by deporting them from the land of Israel, destroying their religious centers of worship and physically isolating or removing them from community life.

But what history has repeatedly failed to recognize is this singular amazing fact: Each time Jewish survival is threatened, the Jewish response that emerges is one of hope and defiance.

Tragedy has always been a catalyst for Jewish national, religious and personal introspection. Jewish leaders have responded to Jewish tragedies by using them as an opportunity to build upon the Jewish belief that redemption is possible for every Jew and for the Jewish nation as a whole.

Since the creation of the first Jewish community center (the Bet Knesset) in Babylon to the creation of the state of Israel, Jews have responded to historic crises with two words: faith and community.

Faith, that if we live according to the commandments, we will be restored to the land of Israel; and community — the knowledge that we must live, work, study and bond together to guarantee Jewish survival.

Just as Rosh Hashanah provides us with the opportunity each year to engage in meaningful questioning and soulful introspection, Tisha b’Av serves as a time to appreciate what has kept Jews and Judaism alive throughout history: abiding faith and commitment to preserving Jewish community.



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IJN Columnist | Reflections


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