Tisha B’Av (Hebrew: תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב), also known as “The Ninth of Av,” is a fast day that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples. It also happens to be the day that many other calamities have befallen the Jewish people, some of which are listed below:
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.
2. 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,[7] the actual destruction of the Temple began on the Ninth of Av, and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.
3. The Second Temple built by Ezra and Nehemiah was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land.
4. The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba’s revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 4 August 135 CE.
5. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, in 135 CE.
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 which occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B’Av (see below).
- 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).
- 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).
- The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza.
