On August 2 to August 3, So long Ago: Disaster

 Nadene Goldfoot

For the Orthodox Jew who knows what they are remembering right now are the days of Tishsa B'Av, or the 9th of the month of Av.  In my house, we would be remembering my brother's birthday on the 2nd of August;  my baby brother who was such a gift to us, David.

To me as a Jewish daughter, sister, mother and grandmother, I certainly do remember this part of our history;  the most important part, that the religious remember with fasting and prayers.  

Long ago the 9th of Av (August) was like a bad luck day;  so many things bad happened then, and today, the 3rd of August, is the 2nd day of this.  

Five calamities

Excavated stones from the Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Jerusalem, Israel), knocked onto the street below by Roman battering rams in 70 CE

According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4:6), five specific events occurred on the ninth of Av that warrant fasting:

1. The Twelve Spies sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan returned from their mission. Only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, brought a positive report, while the others spoke disparagingly about the land. The majority report caused the Children of Israel to cry, panic and despair of ever entering the "Promised Land". For this, they were punished by God that their generation would not enter the land.The midrash quotes God as saying about this event, "You cried before me pointlessly, I will fix for you [this day as a day of] crying for the generations", alluding to the future misfortunes which occurred on the same date.                                          
   
   
   

1. The First Temple built by King Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and the population of the Kingdom of Judah was sent into the Babylonian exile. According to the Bible, the First Temple's destruction began on the 7th of Av (2 Kings 25:8) and continued until the 10th (Jeremiah 52:12). According to the Talmud, the actual destruction of the Temple began on the Ninth of Av, and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.
2. The Second Temple, built by Zerubbabel and renovated by Herod the Great, was destroyed by the Romans on 9 Av 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land.
3. The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 9 Av 135 CE.
4. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

Other calamities                  

Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.

• The First Crusade officially commenced on 15 August 1096 (Av 24, AM 4856), killing 10,000 Jews in its first month and destroying Jewish communities in France and the Rhineland.
• The Jews were expelled from England on 18 July 1290 (Av 9, AM 5050).They remained expelled for 365 years.  
• The Jews were expelled from France on 22 July 1306 (Av 10, AM 5066).
• The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).
• Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.
• On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.
• On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.
• The AMIA bombing on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on 18 July 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).

While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, either in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.

Tisha b'Av prayers (1740)

Similarly, within Religious Zionist communities, the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza is mourned on Tisha B'Av as well, a practice supported by Religious Zionist rabbis like Yaakov Ariel and Dov Lior. Kinnot have been composed about the withdrawal, and the connection to Tisha b'Av was emphasized in 10-year anniversary commemorations. Although the disengagement operation had been delayed specifically to avoid coinciding with The Three Weeks and Tisha b'Av, the timing lent itself to symbolic interpretation both by Religious Zionists and by wider Jewish culture. However, even within Religious Zionism, Chaim Navon holds that the disengagement did not rise to the level of a calamity and Shlomo Aviner has written that mourning the disengagement on Tisha b'Av is forbidden because it incites political division. Yona Metzger, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled in 2006 that the disengagement was a tragedy but mourning rituals should not be integrated into Tisha b'Av, while Howard Jachter permits it in narrow fashion.

Kinnot regarding the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel have also been added to the Tisha b'Av liturgy.

  Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisha_B'Av