This is the Forward’s coverage of the Jewish holiday of Tish’a B’av, which commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem’s ancient temple (the Second Temple) by the Romans in the year 70, and other historic tragedies.
Tisha B’Av
The Latest
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Opinion Music for the 9th of Av: On Jerusalem, Exile and Homelessness
I agonized over this. We’re now in the nine-day mourning period approaching Tisha B’Av. Music is not appropriate. Can we observe by listening to music of the season? Well, I decided to go with it. It’s for those who haven’t thought of observing the mourning period, to get you in the mood. There are versions…
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Books An Empty Mental Space
Earlier this week, Dr. Erica Brown asked, “What are the Three Weeks, anyway?” and wrote about learning to mourn. Her new book, “In the Narrow Places,” is now available. Her posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite, courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more…
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Books Learning to Mourn
On Monday, Dr. Erica Brown asked, “What are the Three Weeks, anyway?” Her posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite, courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: We have become who we are as a people not only…
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Books What Are the Three Weeks, Anyway?
Dr. Erica Brown is the author of “In the Narrow Places,” a daily meditation for each day of the Three Weeks. Her posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite, courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: I recently…
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The Schmooze Mourning and Madness in the Warsaw Ghetto
The year is 1943. The place is Warsaw. The ghetto uprising has been crushed, but one man, a Hasid by the name of Yosl Rakover, is still alive, and he is busy recording his sordid tale for posterity. After recounting the events of the last few years — the deaths of his children and grandchildren,…
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Life Offbeat Israel: Shas and Shekels, Crocs and the Fast
Four American ultra-Orthodox Jews met today with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. They were activists from the strongly anti-Zionist sect Neturei Karta, which maintains contacts with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (members of the group famously visited Tehran in 2006). Haaretz reports on the meeting with here. Is it a proposal to ram religion down people’s throats?…
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Life Fasting While Pregnant?
Of the four fasts commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples, Tisha B’Av is the only one in which traditional rabbinic authorities don’t widely exempt pregnant and nursing women. In the following video, posted Tuesday on Web Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim Brovender — who is not a medical doctor — states that “there is…
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Opinion Was There Really No Other Way?
According to all reports, synagogues in America were unusually well-attended this Tisha B’Av, which fell this year on August 3. It’s the day on which Jews — some, anyway — remember to mourn the destruction of the First Temple, and then, according to the tradition, a number of other calamities that befell our people through…
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