Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the Jewish holiday of Tish’a B’av, which commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem’s ancient temple (the Second Temple) by the Romans in the year 70, and other historic tragedies.
Tisha B’Av
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Fast Forward Thousands Mark Tisha b’Av at Western Wall
JERUSALEM — Thousands of worshippers marked the fast of Tisha b’Av at the Western Wall. Tisha b’Av, a 25-hour fast, commemorates the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and other tragedies in Jewish history. Beginning on Saturday night and continuing throughout Sunday, the worshippers read the Book of Lamentations and other lamentations dealing with the…
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Opinion In Israel, Let’s Destroy Jewish Fundamentalism Before It Destroys Us
This week we marked Tisha b’Av (the ninth of Av), a date commemorating a series of horrific events throughout Jewish history. According to rabbinic tradition, these spanned from the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem in 587 BCE to the 1942 liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. While one common thread binding these calamities is…
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Community Imagining New Jewish Rituals on Tisha B’av
Nuovi Rituali Fun Goles (New Rituals in Exile) began shortly after I returned from a semester studying architecture in Rome in 2014. Upon returning home, I realized that I had left one of the most vibrant cities of the Jewish Diaspora without considering the Roman Jewish community or my identity relative to it. Later that…
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Opinion As We Approach Tisha b’Av, the Jewish Future Again Hangs in the Balance
Calendar alert: Saturday, July 23, coincided this year with the 17th of Tammuz on the Hebrew calendar. That means we’ve now entered the traditional mourning period known as The Three Weeks. The 17th of Tammuz is a minor fast day, dawn to dusk, commemorating the Roman legions’ breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in the…
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Life Tackling the Gendered Language of Tisha B’Av Liturgy Through Textile
Tisha B’Av traditionally commemorates the destructions of the first (586 BCE) and second temples (69 CE) as well as a host of other tragic historical events. The first time I went to synagogue on Tisha B’Av at 20-years-old, I found the experience isolating: we are supposed to come together in community and sit silently, low…
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Life Tisha B’Av, Tu B’Av and My Journey of Sexual Healing
I recently participated in a panel on Judaism and Sexuality where I spoke about the potential of healing and transformation in sexuality. Where once there was only hurt, we can have corrective experiences around our vulnerability that allow us to access pleasure and joy in sexuality. In my experience this has required my willingness to…
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Opinion Should We Transform Tisha B’Av from Fast to Feast?
Tisha B’Av is one of Judaism’s two major fast days, but it’s mostly unfamiliar to American Jews. I saw this clearly when, in 2013, I served as Team Rabbi for the U.S. delegation to the World Maccabiah Games. Before the games, we took teams on a trip around Israel, and Tisha B’Av fell near the…
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Fast Forward No Tisha B’Av Fast for Israeli Soldiers in Gaza
Israeli soldiers talking part in the Gaza operation are exempted from fasting on Tisha b’Av, the chief rabbis of Israel ruled. Rabbis David Lau (Ashkenazi) and Yitzhak Yosef (Sephardi) presented their ruling on Jewish law, or halachah, on Monday — the fast was to begin at sundown. “As IDF soldiers are standing on the frontline…
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