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FROM DESTRUCTION OF TEMPLE TO EXPULSION FROM SPAIN: TISHA B'AV - DAY OF DISASTERS Tisha B'Av -- the national day of mourning of the Jewish people -- falls this coming Sunday, July 29. Tisha B'Av -- -- the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av -- marks the destruction of both the first and second Temples. The First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah (comprised of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin) lost its independence and the population was slaughtered or exiled. After returning to the Land of Israel 70 years later, with the permission of King Cyrus of Persia, which had conquered Babylon, the Second Temple was built. That Temple was also destroyed on Tisha B'Av, in the year 70 CE, by the Romans who controlled the Land of Israel at the time. Under the leadership of Titus, the Romans killed innumerable Jews, and exiled the survivors throughout the Roman Empire, where they were sold as slaves. This marked the end of Jewish sovereignty over their homeland for almost 2000 years. According to tradition, Tisha B'Av is a day marked for calamity. It was on that day that it was decreed that the Children of Israel would wander in the desert for 40 years before entering the Promised Land, following the sin of the Spies; it was on that day, in 135 CE that the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans was crushed and the city of Betar, the stronghold of the rebellion, was captured and destroyed. It was on Tisha B'av of the following year that the Temple Mount was plowed under by the Romans. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a pagan city - renamed Aelia Capitolina - to which entry was forbidden to Jews. Only on Ninth of Av were they permitted to visit Jerusalem, to mourn the destruction of their land, their city, and their Temple. More disasters befell the Jews on Tisha B'Av: Pope Urban II declared the First Crusade, in which tens of thousands of Jews were killed, and many Jewish communities destroyed; King Ferdinand of Spain issued the expulsion decree ordering all Jews to leave Spain, setting Tisha B'Av 1492 as the final date for them to leave; World War I broke out on Tisha B'Av, setting the stage for the Holocaust; deportation of the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began on that day. Tisha B'Av culminates the three-week period of mourning that began on the 17th of Tamuz. During the "three weeks," weddings and other parties are not permitted, and people refrain from cutting their hair. From the first to the ninth of Av, it is customary to refrain from eating meat or drinking wine (except on the Sabbath) and from wearing new clothing. Tisha B'Av is marked by abstinence from food and drink from sunset till sunset. Traditional mourning customs, such as refraining from wearing leather shoes and refraining from bathing, are also observed. In the evening, the Book of Lamentations is read in synagogue, which is draped in black. In addition, Sephardi synagogues are lit by candles only. Special dirges, called Kinnot are recited both in the evening and the following morning. In Israel, restaurants and places of entertainment are closed. In Jerusalem, it is a custom to walk around the walls of the Old City on the evening of Tisha B'av.
It is told that Napoleon chanced to enter a synagogue on Tisha B'Av. He saw the Jews sitting in darkness on the floor, weeping inconsolably. He asked the cause of their grief and was told that they were mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. "When did this happen? " he asked. "Two thousand years ago," he was told. "A people that remembers its land for two thousand years, will certainly return," the emperor responded.
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