Patrick Comerford
Tisha BeAb or Tisha B’Av (תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב), literally ‘the Ninth of Av,’ is an annual fast day in the Hebrew calendar. The fast commemorates the destruction of both the First Temple and Second Temple in Jerusalem, which occurred about 655 years apart, but on the same date in the Hebrew calendar. This year is the Hebrew year 5785, and Tisha B’Av begins at sundown this evening (2 August 2025) and ends at nightfall tomorrow (3 August 2025).
I spent some yesterday at the Japanese Peace Pagoda at Willen Lake, filming a brief contribution to planned commemorations next week of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August). It is not without poignancy that these two anniversaries come so close to Tisha B’Av this year.
Today is known as Shabbat Chazon, which began at sundown last night (1 August 2025) and ends at nightfall tonight (2 August 2025). Shabbat Chazon, or the Sabbath of Vision, takes its name from the Haftarah that is read immediately before Tisha B’Av, with its words of rebuke and doom coming from Isaiah (1: 1-27).
This Saturday is also known as the ‘Black Sabbath’. But this has nothing to do with Ozzy Osbourne, whose funeral took place in Birmingham this week. It is known as the ‘Black Sabbath’ because for Jews it is the saddest Shabbat of the year, as opposed to the ‘White Sabbath’ Shabbat Shuvah that comes immediately proceeds Yom Kippur.
Tisha B’Av is regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. It recalls many disasters in the course of Jewish history, particularly the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.
Traditionally, the day is observed through five prohibitions, including a 25-hour fast. The Book of Lamentations, which is read in synagogues, mourns the destruction of Jerusalem, followed by the recitation of kinot or liturgical dirges that lament the loss of the Temples and of Jerusalem and recall events such as the murder of the Ten Martyrs by the Romans, massacres of mediaeval Jewish communities during the Crusades, the expulsions of Jews from Spain by the Inquisition, and the Holocaust.
According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4: 6), five events occurred on the Ninth of Av that are recalled in the traditional fasting.
The First Temple built by King Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE, and the people of Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. The destruction of the Temple destruction began on the 7th of Av (II Kings 25: 8) and continued until the 10th (Jeremiah 52: 12).
According to the Talmud, the actual destruction began on the Ninth of Av and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.
The Second Temple was built by Ezra and Nehemiah and was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the exile of the Jewish people. The Romans later crushed Bar Kokhba’s revolt and killed over 500,000 people, and then razed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area in 135 CE.
Over time, Tisha B’Av has come to be a day of mourning not only for these events, but also for later tragedies, including:
• The First Crusade began on 15 August 1096 (24 Av), and 10,000 Jews were slaughtered in its first month in France and the Rhineland.
• The Jews were expelled from England on 18 July 1290 (9 Av).
• The Jews were expelled from France on 22 July 1306 (10 Av).
• The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (7 Av).
• Germany entered World War I on 1-2 August 1914 (9-10 Av).
• Himmler formally received approval from the Nazis for the ‘Final Solution’ on 2 August 1941 (9 Av).
• The mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began on 23 July 1942 (9 Av).
• 85 people were killed in a bomb attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires on 18 July 1994 (10 Av).
Many religious communities mourn the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust on Tisha B’Av, adding the recitation of special kinot related to the Holocaust. Additionally, as members of the Cork Jewish Community were reminded in preparation for commemorations some years ago, ‘contemporary Jews often use this day to acknowledge that evil exists in the world, whether we want it to or not, and to reflect how we can make the world a kinder, more welcoming place for everyone. What can you do to give back in a meaningful way?’
In the Sephardic tradition, Tisha BeAb is significant in the Sephardic tradition in ways that surpass how other holidays are observed, or even how this date is observed in other Jewish traditions. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain issues their Edict of Expulsion on 31 March and it was to be completed in four months by the end of July. That date was the day before 9 Ab, making the link to the earlier destruction of Jerusalem particularly strong for Sephardic Jews.
This connection is even stronger because, according to the prophet Obadiah, the Jews of Sepharad were descendants of the exiles of Jerusalem (Galut Yershushalayim Asher B’Spharad), and the the rabbis of Spain understood Sepharad to mean Spain.
The fast on Tisha B’Av lasts about 25 hours, beginning at sunset on the preceding evening lasting until nightfall the next day. The five traditional prohibitions on Tisha B’Av are:
• eating or drinking;
• washing or bathing;
• application of creams or oils;
• wearing (leather) shoes;
• marital or sexual relations.
If possible, work is avoided during this period. Ritual washing up to the knuckles is allowed, as is washing to remove dirt or mud from one’s body.
Torah study is forbidden as it is considered a spiritually enjoyable activity, although one may study texts such as the Book of Lamentations, the Book of Job, portions of Jeremiah and chapters of the Talmud that discuss mourning and the destruction of the Temple.
Before the evening services begin in synagogues, the parochet covering the Torah Ark is removed or drawn aside, lasting until the Mincha prayer service. Old prayer-books and Torah scrolls are often buried on this day.
The scroll of Eicha (Lamentations) is read in synagogues in the evening, and in many Sephardic congregations the Book of Job is read in the morning. The morning is spent chanting or reading kinot mourning the loss of the Temples and the subsequent persecutions, often referring to post-exilic disasters.
The most popular kinot were written by the eighth-century liturgical poet Elazar Hakallir, Judah Halevi (1085-1145), the Spanish philosopher regarded by many as the greatest post-biblical poet, and Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1058).
Other kinot were written in response to tragedies in Jewish history, including the public burning of the Torah in Paris, the massacres of Jews during the first Crusade, the slaughter of the Jews of York, and the annihilation of European Jewry in the Holocaust.
This year, Bevis Marks once again is welcoming Hazzan Nachshon Rodrigues Pereira from the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam to lead the services on Tisha BeAb, this evening and tomorrow morning. This evening’s service is an opportunity to hear haunting melodies and to see the synagogue draped in black, illuminated by candlelight.
In western Sephardi Tisha BeAb services, there is a tendency to emphasise hope for ultimate redemption and national and spiritual restoration, as part of the recalled collective grief.
This is reflected in one the most celebrated compositions by Judah ha-Levi often heard in synagogues on Tisha B’Av:
Zion, wilt thou not ask if peace’s wing
Shadows the captives that ensue thy peace
Left lonely from thine ancient shepherding?
Lo! west and east and north and south – worldwide
All those from far and near, without surcease
Salute thee: Peace and Peace from every side.
The way Tisha BeAb is marked at Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, for example, poignantly evokes melancholy emotions. The Hehal (ark) is draped in a black cloth, as is the Sepher (Torah scroll). Furthermore, the synagogue, famous for its chandeliers, instead uses ‘low lights’ for illumination. These candles attached to the benches themselves, provide just a minimal glow so that the prayers can be recited.
This is one of the most intricate musical services of the year in a synagogue with such an elaborate liturgical tradition. Each kinah (‘lamentation’) is read according to a unique melody, reflecting the significance of the sufferings remembered on this day.
The traditional greeting for 9 Ab in Spanish and Portuguese communities is Morir habemos, to which the reply is Ya lo sabemos.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who has been named by the Forward as one of ‘America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis’, recently wrote ‘Eikhah for Israel and Gaza’ as part of the Liturgical Arts Working Group at Bayit, and shared it there as part of their Tisha b’Av collection. She also posted this poem on her blog, Velveteen Rabbi, last year (8 August 2024):
Eikhah for Israel and Gaza
Walls burned or broken
Peacemakers kidnapped and slaughtered
Children terrorized
Buildings bombed to rubble
Hospitals destroyed
Cisterns emptied
Everywhere pictures of the hostages
Everywhere reminders of the martyrs
Everywhere parents burying children
Our grief and fury could wash away creation.
Will anyone survive, clinging to this battered ark?
Is there an olive tree left anywhere?
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
Some years ago, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat wrote another poem, ‘What Gets Me’, for this sombre day after travelling in Israel, when she ‘was profoundly struck by the reminder of how many peoples have hated us and tried to wipe us out. It’s history I’ve always known, of course. But it lands differently now.’
‘Once I had the luxury of imagining that antisemitism was outdated and fading away,’ she wrote. ‘With the ugly rise of white nationalism and ‘Christian nationalism’ both here and elsewhere – with the reality that my synagogue now keeps its doors locked – with praise for Hitler coming from public figures – every Jew I know lives with the sickening awareness that there are people who want to exterminate us.’
‘Most of the time I keep the fear and grief at bay,’ she said. ‘But Tisha b’Av is in part about letting ourselves feel the things we keep at arm’s length. We let our walls come down and face what feels annihilating. From the other side of that brokenness we begin the ascent to the Days of Awe.’
What Gets Me
Not just the litany of destruction: Babylon, Rome, the first Crusade.
Forced out of England, and France, and Spain.
Or how on this day in 1941 the Nazi Party approved
“The Final Solution,” the mass graves, the gas chambers.
Or the old claim that we make matzah with their children’s blood,
or the cartoons that show us hook-nosed and greedy,
money-grubbing, conspiring, defiling the world
with our stubborn insistence that we deserve to exist.
What gets me is that these hatreds persist.
In every antisemitic flyer and QAnon meme.
In every synagogue shooting.
In the uneasy fear that we might be next.
And still somehow we’re meant to look inside, to do the work,
To seek justice for those who have it worse than we,
To make things right with those we’ve harmed,
And if we must, to die like our ancestors –
– with the Sh’ma on our lips.
As Rabbi Rachel Barenblat said when she wrote that poem, may this year’s Tisha b’Av be what we need it to be, and may it move us closer to a world redeemed.
