100,000 Jews At Western Wall for Tisha B'Av 5767

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123174
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) 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.

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.

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

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.

The ninth of Av this year marks 1,939 years since the Roman conquest.
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.

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.

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.

"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.

On Tuesday morning, about 100 activists succeeded in reaching the destroyed northern Samaria town of Homesh. The Homesh First movement said the activists arrived overnight. They read the book of Lamentations and recited the Tisha B'Av dirges upon the ruins of the Homesh synagogue.

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.