Tisha B'Av 2026

Today, we observe Tisha B’Av – the 9^th day of the month of Av.  Just a few days ago, archaeologists working in Jerusalem announced that they had discovered charred beams dating back to the destruction of the First Temple on Tisha B'Av in 586 BCE (more details here). It is yet another example of archaeology telling the same story that we Jews have been telling ourselves for centuries.

Scientists can explain how plaster sealed the beams under intense heat and allowed the wood to survive for more than 2,600 years. It is even harder to explain how the Jewish people have preserved the memory of the Temple's destruction for just as long.

The truth is that not only was the First Temple destroyed on Tisha B'Av, but the Second Temple was destroyed on the very same date some 650 years later. Over time, the Tisha B’Av became Judaism's equivalent of the Ides of March or Friday the 13th—a date forever associated with tragedy. In addition to the destruction of the Temples, some of the darkest moments in Jewish history have also become linked to this day.

Here are just a few of them:

1. During the time of Moses, the Israelites accepted the slanderous report of the Twelve Spies, and God decreed that that generation would not enter the Land of Israel (c. 1312 BCE).

2. The Bar Kochba revolt was crushed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The city of Betar—the Jews' last stronghold against Rome—fell, and more than 100,000 Jews were slaughtered (132 CE).

3. The Temple Mount and its surroundings were plowed under by the Roman governor Turnus Rufus. Jerusalem was rebuilt as the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina, and Jews were forbidden from entering it (133 CE).

4. Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade, setting in motion massacres of Jewish communities across Europe (1095 CE).

5. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain took effect on Tisha B'Av in 1492, bringing centuries of Jewish life in Spain to a tragic end.

6. World War I began on the eve of Tisha B'Av in 1914 when Germany declared war on Russia. The war and its aftermath helped create the conditions that eventually led to the Holocaust.

7. On the eve of Tisha B'Av in 1942, the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.

Part of the reason we continue to remember Tisha B'Av is because terrible things have continued to happen on or around that date. But that is not the whole story. The deeper reason we remember Tisha B'Av is that, despite every tragedy, we have always managed to overcome our challenges and continue on as a people.

Just this week, in southern Germany, a 65-year-old man wearing an Israeli flag pin was attacked by a younger man of Syrian descent and nearly beaten to death (more details here). It was yet another reminder that hateful words about Jews and Israel inevitably lead to violence against Jews and supporters of Israel. On the surface, it sounded like the repetition of an old story in Germany.

This time, however, the story had a different ending. The police arrested the attacker, and he has been charged with attempted murder. It is a reminder that Germany today is not Germany of the 1930s or 1940s. History may echo, but it does not always repeat itself.

On Tisha B'Av, we should remember the long list of terrible things that have happened on this date throughout Jewish history. But we should also take a moment to remember something else: the remarkable resilience of the Jewish people. We have mourned, we have rebuilt, and we have lived to see better days. That, too, is part of the story of Tisha B'Av.

Shalom, 

RAF.