Over one hundred thousand Jews flooded the Kotel (Western Wall) Plaza on Monday night and Tuesday to say traditional Tisha B'Av lamentations for the loss of the First and Second Jerusalem Temples. Thousands encircled the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, as well, to mark the day of mourning.

Masses gather in the Kotel Plaza seated on the floor and low stools to mourn the destruction of the Jerusalem Temples

Many sleep the night on the stone floor on the Kotel Plaza as an expression of mourning for the destroyed Temples.

Midnight at the Kotel: after reciting Lamentations, the children go to sleep, and the father stays up studying ancient texts about the temple destruction.

Police prevented a group of Jews led by activists Noam Federman and Itamar Ben Gvir from praying at a gate leading up to the Temple Mount. The two are leaders in the struggle for the right for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Noam Federman was arrested.
The ninth of Av this year marks 1,939 years since the Roman conquest.

Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of Av in the Hebrew calendar, is a sundown-to-sundown day of fasting and mourning marking the destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, the subsequent exile from the Land of Israel, as well as other historical calamities that befell the Jewish People on the same date. Traditional rabbinical literature links the ninth of Av date with the day that the spies in the Biblical account brought back their negative report of the Land of Israel, which the children of Israel believed and over which they wept on this day.

Jewish tradition treats Tisha B'Av as one of the most severe of fast days, in that it lasts just over 24 hours and entails stringencies of behavior akin to those observed by mourners. In fact, the rabbis enacted a prohibition of the study of Torah on Tisha B'Av, as such learning is considered too joyful an activity for this day of distress over the destruction of the Temple and the loss of Jewish sovereignty.

In keeping with an old Jerusalem custom, thousands attended a march around the Old City walls sponsored by the Women In Green organization. Participants gathered at City Hall near the Old City, and proceeded to march around the walls to Dung Gate and the Western Wall.

Waiting for the March around the Old City to begin, participants gather at City Hall on Tisha B'Av night and sit on the ground or low stools as a sign of mourning for the Temples' destruction.

March participants gather at City Hall

Among the special prayers of the day are the reading of the scroll of Eicha (Lamentations) and a recitation of dirges memorializing the Jewish victims of Roman, Babylonian and other persecutions through the ages. Since World War II, many communities include additional dirges composed in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

The ninth of Av this year marks 1,939 years since the Roman conquest and destruction of the Second Temple. The Temple was the symbol of continuing Jewish national life in the Land of Israel and its destruction marked the end of a Jewish revolt against foreign, in this case, Roman, domination.

Young children join the Tisha B'Av march around the Old City.

Marchers progress towards the Old City (Old City walls just behind palm trees)

 

The march goes past the Shechem (AKA Damascus) Gate of the Old City

 

The Shechem Gate

Following their hard-won victory over the Jewish rebels, the Romans renamed Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina," and the Land of Israel, then known as Judea, they renamed "Paelestina," in an effort to erase the Jewish connection with the area. It is from this imperial effort at revisionist history that the term "Palestine" for the region roughly between Iraq and the Mediterranean Sea is derived.

A Proposed Addition to the Liturgy
A Jerusalem Talmudic institute has published an additional Tisha B'Av dirge (kina) commemorating the destruction of the Jewish towns of Gaza and northern Samaria. The destruction of the towns, as part of the Disengagement operation, began the day after Tisha B'Av in 2005.

"This is religious poetry that truly speaks from the heart. It eloquently captures the feelings of the day, of both the destruction of our Holy Temple and the holy communities of Gush Katif and northern Samaria," says Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, the head of Machon Shiloh.

The traditional Tisha B'Av march proceeds along the Old City walls towards the Flower Gate

Mounted police accompany the Tisha B'Av march

A Tisha B'Av poetry reading is featured during a break at the Lion's Gate of the Old City

At Lion's Gate. Sign reads: "For Jerusalem's sake, i will not be silent."

The road leading up to Lion's Gate (in the background at end of road)

A policeman at an Arab cemetery build adjacent to the Old City walls guards the marches as they pass below

"Many words in the dirge have double meanings and reflect the bitterness caused by this modern tragedy," Rabbi Bar-Hayim explained. "Rabbi [Yehoshua] Buch has expended great effort to adhere to the historical style of the traditional dirge. All words of his dirge - except for one - are found in the Hebrew Bible, although grammar may have necessitated some slight changes. My only regret is that Rabbi Buch's beautiful poetry reflects our current state of mourning rather than celebration. I look forward to the day when we will be able to publish poetry celebrating the rebuilding of the destroyed communities and our Holy Temple."

The dirge, composed by Rabbi Buch, can be downloaded from the Machon Shiloh website.

Marching beneath Old City walls with Mount of Olives in background (picture taken with flash and long exposure)

Marches at the southern walls of Jerusalem. Arab mosque on Temple Mount in background.

Tisha B'Av At Kever Rachel

Three buses full of English-speaking adults and students headed to Kever Rachel, the Tomb of the Matriarch Rachel, to begin the fast of the 9th of Av. The Jewish holy site is located just outside Jerusalem, on the northern tip of Bethlehem.

The trip was the joint project of Rachel's Children Reclamation Foundation, Kumah, and Yaavneh Olami.

Some 150 Jews Begin the Tisha B'Av at the Tomb of Rachel, south of Jerusalem
Photo: Yishai Fleisher

The Entrance to Kever Rachel
Photo: Yishai Fleisher

 

Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute addresses the English-speakers at Kever Rachel
Photo: Yishai Fleisher

 

Homesh was one of 4 Jewish towns in northern Samaria destroyed by the Ariel Sharon government in the 2005 Disengagement and Expulsion operation. The site of Homesh remains under IDF military control.

To see live video footage from the Kotel, click here.

All pictures by Arutz Sheva photojournalist Josh Shamsi

Monday night and Tuesday marks Tisha B'Av, the 9th day of Av, commemorating many of the worst tragedies that have befallen the Jewish People over the past 3,300 years. Jews the world over are fasting and praying on this day for the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple.

Though this day is the saddest in the Jewish calendar, it contains several hopeful features.  It is referred to in the Book of Lamentations (Eicha) as an "appointed season" (moed, in Hebrew), which generally refers to a festive day - and in fact, it is expected to be the day on which the Messiah will have been born.  When reading Eicha aloud following the evening prayer service, the penultimate verse is repeated, with the prayer, "Return us unto You, G-d, and we will return. Renew our days as of old!"  In addition, the somber Tachanun prayer is not recited on Tisha B'Av.

On the other hand, many calamities occurred on this day.  Among them were the following, in chronological order:

• the refusal of the Jewish People to ignore the report of the Twelve Scouts and agree to go with Moses to the Promised Land. In the wake of this, G-d decreed on Tisha B'Av 40 years of wandering in the desert instead of an immediate entry into the Land. 
• the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and Romans, respectively;
• the failure of the Bar Kokhba uprising in the second century;
• the day on which all of Spanish Jewry was to be expelled from the country in 1492; the beginning of World War I in 1917;
• the end of legal Jewish residence in Gush Katif, in 2005, as decreed by the Ariel Sharon government.

As on every Tisha B'Av since the liberation of the Old City in 1967, myriads of Jews, this year reaching 100,000, frequented the Western Wall (Kotel) Monday night and Tuesday, praying for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple just behind it. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed - Rabbi of Har Bracha in the Shomron and author of several Halakhic [Jewish Legal] works - relates to the question of whether the gathering at the Kotel constitutes a joyous get-together, which is ordinarily forbidden on Tisha B'Av.  He writes,

"It is clear that one need not refrain from going to the Western Wall [on Tisha B'Av] for fear of meeting friends and being happy. My father and teacher [Rabbi Zalman Melamed] has said that there is no greater rectification [tikun, in Hebrew] for Tisha B'Av than to go to the Wall, the remnant of the destruction, and to pray for the Holy Temple to be speedily rebuilt in our days. On the contrary, the fact that many people go there enhances the power of the prayer, and increases Divine honor."

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed added that when one meets friends at the Kotel on Tisha B'Av, "he should not greet them, but is permitted to grasp their hands with love and pray with them for the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash (Temple)."

Syria sees the next war with Israel as involving missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and front-line guerilla warfare, an anonymous senior official in the Syrian Ministry of Defense told Defense News Weekly, in an interview appearing Monday. Syria prefers to avoid a direct, "classic" confrontation with Israel, he said. Instead, the next war will involve Katyusha rocket and ballistic missiles that will target strategic points in Israel, especially civilian infrastructure.

The official said that the war will not be limited to a single strike, but will be protracted in nature. "This will be a war of attrition, which the Israelis are not good at," he explained. The conflict, he said, "will be more like a war between cities than a war on the battlefield."

According to Arab affairs expert Dr. Guy Bechor, the Syrian assessment is a result of the Second Lebanon War. After that war, the Syrians understood that they do not need a large ground force to defeat Israel, but rather missiles aimed at dense Israeli population centers. For the past two years the Syrians have been engaged in massive acquisitions from Russia, after an $11 billion debt was partially forgiven by Russia in 2005, and partially covered by Iran.

Following the unimpressive performance by the IDF in last year’s war, Bechor explains, Syria beg
The conflict, he said, will be more like a war between cities than a war on the battlefield.
an equipping itself with advanced anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles and cruise missiles.

The Syrian army numbers 650,000 soldiers, including 354,000 reservists, according to Defense News. Its tanks are outdated Soviet models, however, and its air force is inferior to Israel's.

The London-based daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat recently reported that Syria has deployed Chinese C-802 cruise missiles, which it acquired from Iran. In addition, Russia has expressed its willingness to sell the Syrians its Iskander missile, which has a range of 280 kilometers, more than enough to strike at any destination in Israel. The missile features an optical GPS navigational system that allows operators to guide it to their targets.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat also reported Saturday that Iran secretly promised Syria it would provide $1 billion for buying advanced weapons and assist it with nuclear research and the development of chemical weapons, in exchange for a Syrian promise not to enter diplomatic negotiations with Israel. However, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the report as a "media game" and asked how the media could know about the deal if it was confidential.

Arab affairs experts also questioned the veracity of the report, noting that it was written by an exiled Iranian who may simply have wanted to portray Iran's leadership in a bad light.

After four Lebanese soldiers were killed on Sunday in the town of Nahr el-Bared in northern Lebanon, Lebanese troops resumed their shelling of Islamist terrorists who have been holed up there for more than two months. Lebanese artillery fired a shell every three minutes on the positions of the Fatah al-Islam terrorists, who responded with machine gun fire.

A Lebanese Army spokesman said the clashes intensified after a morning lull: "The army is responding to the source of fire from inside the camp and continues to remove booby-traps left behind by Fatah al-Islam in destroyed buildings," he said.

The four soldiers killed on Sunday brought the total death toll of Lebanese soldiers to 116 or 117, depending on the source. According to Reuters news agency, 15 other soldiers were wounded. The state-run National News Agency said 13 Fatah al-Islam men were killed.

An Army spokesperson contacted by the Beirut Daily Star explained how things work at Nahr el-Bared: "They don't have a speakerphone or any tools to respond to us as the media reported. We called on them to surrender and to allow their families to evacuate, but they continued their attacks and we took that as a rejection of the calls," said the army source.

Nahr el-Bared, which had 40,000 residents ten weeks ago, now has less than 1,000, possibly less than 100. The rest have either fled or died. The total number of civilians killed is not known, but the reports that have come from Nahr el-Bared over the past few weeks do not bode well. "The total death toll from the battle that has been raging since May 20 has exceeded 200," says one report, and explains that it is quoting "estimates not taking into account t
"The army is not letting anyone in here so no one can see the massacres they have committed"
he bodies of Islamists remaining inside Nahr al-Bared camp."

"The army is not letting anyone in here," said an Arab from inside Nahr el-Bared who was quoted in an earlier report by IRIN News, a UN-sponsored news agency, "so no one can see the massacres they have committed."

Despite all this, the international community and world media appear relatively unconcerned by what may well turn out to be a massacre of civilians at Nahr el-Bared, and by the "ethnic cleansing" which has turned it into a ghost town. Video aired on Al Jazeera TV, however, shows scenes that would have elicited great furor, had they occured in a town that was under Israeli attack.

While the Lebanese Red Cross launched a campaign calling on citizens to donate blood for the soldiers wounded in the conflict, the residents of Nahr el-Bared have not had access to medical clinics since the early stages of the fighting, and the International Red Cross has been unable to deliver any food, water or medicine into the town since June 22nd, reportedly because "the army is refusing to grant safe passage."

"Not allowing the supplies through is a mass punishment for all the civilians inside here," a resident of the camp was quoted as saying. "If there is not an immediate ceasefire we are afraid the army will destroy the camp and we will all die in here."

The public-sector labor union, the Histadrut, is threatening a nationwide strike this week should an agreement with the government over wages not be reached. Histadrut Chairman Ofir Eini and Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On are to meet Tuesday evening in a last minute effort to prevent the strike. The wage gap between the union's demands and the government's position is more than 10 percent.

On Monday, Eini said that the strike was nearly inevitable. He called together union leaders on Tuesday to discuss the dates and scope of work sanctions for various public services.

Organizations representing private sector businesses warned that the union has not given the public enough advanced warning to prepare for a strike. Analysts for the Association of Industrialists predicted that a general strike would cost the economy NIS 800 million in its first day, with the economic losses increasing each day thereafter.

Union officials confirmed that there is intense public pressure to prevent the strike, especially at Ben Gurion International Airport, which is approaching its peak season. Many airlines have bumped up their departure times to take place prior to the announced start of the airport employees' strike, at 8:00 am on Wednesday. Jewish Agency director Ze'ev Bielski has appealed to Histadrut leader Ofir Eini to make sure that 600 new immigrants from France will be able to land as scheduled early Wednesday morning.

"I cannot believe that anyone would prevent olim from arriving to their new home," Bielski stated. "It is unreasonable to expect the Jewish Agency to find ways to house them at 2:30 am," he added. "They have sold their houses and this is not the way to welcome them to their new home."

Minister Bar-On said, "Any strike will harm the economy, economic stability and the workers themselves." According to Bar-On, acceding to the Histadrut demands will extend the national budget beyond its limits and lead to a slow-down in growth, a drop in the standard of living and an increase in unemployment.

Histadrut Chairman Eini said that, in their Monday meeting, the Finance Minister had committed to a wage increase of 1% by 2009, over the currently agreed-upon 0.4%. Eini dismissed the Minister's offer, saying it comes to just 15 shekels per employee paycheck. 

“My children have become forlorn, because the enemy has prevailed.”  Lamentations 1:16

Prayers marking the fast day of the Ninth of Av, known as Tisha B’av, are being held in a tent erected opposite the Knesset in Jerusalem.

Farmers who once worked the fields in the destroyed region of Gaza known as Gush Katif are sitting in their tent to protest the government’s failure to compensate them for their lost businesses.

For the farmers of the Gush Katif region of Gaza the day carries a special significance, underscoring not only the loss of the central institutions of the Jewish world thousands of years ago but also the loss of their personal livelihoods and homes.

It has been two years that they and their families have been without their farms, since the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria during which approximately 9,000 Jews in 25 communities were uprooted from their towns and expelled from their homes.

The Book of Lamentations as well as other holy texts will be read in the tent, as elsewhere in the Jewish world, to mark the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem, as well as a number of other tragedies in Jewish history.

The fast lasts from Monday, 18 minutes before sundown, until approximately one hour after sundown Tuesday night, and special prayers are said, mourning the destruction and looking ahead to the time when the Temple will once again be rebuilt.

Terrorist training camps and rocket launching sites now multiply where fruits, vegetables and flowers once grew for export and domestic consumption in the region of Gush Katif, located on Israel's southern Mediterranean coast.

Now the farmers have “settled” in a tent opposite the Knesset to protest the fact that the government has yet to compensate them for the farmland that was taken away and given to the Palestinian Authority.

Several politicians visited the farmers’ protest tent last week, including party chairman and Knesset opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who called the expulsion of Jews from Gaza a “double tragedy.”  Netanyahu voted in favor of the expulsion in the Knesset.

The expulsion itself caused “suffering and pain,” he said, noting that “today, on your farms, rockets are stationed against Israel.”  During his visit, Netanyahu called on the government to “act to fix this injustice.”

A7 Radio's "Temple Talk" with Rabbi Chaim Richman and Yitchak Reuven

Join us as we mourn for the Holy Temple for the last time, as Tisha B'Av turns into a day of rejoicing and rebuilding in our time. Why does the inspirational book of Deuteronomy begin with words of rebuke? A lesson about the love and fear of G-d.  Plus: Update on the Temple Mount and the duplicitous policies of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

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Also Hour 2 on "Temple Talk":

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