Tonight begins Tisha b’Av, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, a day of Jewish mourning both general and specific. Specific, because there are tragic events that happened on this day throughout Jewish history—most prominently, the destruction of both the first and second holy temple in Jerusalem. General, because it is a day of recurring stress and therefore fear of what future events may be added to its roster.
This is why Iran has been threatening for over a week to attack Israel on this day. And Israelis are indeed bracing for that attack. They are also doing something deeply meaningful and historically significant: composing dirges that may be added to the day’s liturgy.
The prayer services on Tisha b’Av include a collection of poems called kinnot. They can be difficult both to recite and to translate, but they have the distinction of being the truly open-ended prayer book in Jewish practice. Subjects of kinnot include the destruction of the temples, atrocities during the Crusades, and in recent years some have marked the Holocaust.
To which Israelis are adding elegies inspired by October 7.
“It’s like there is a structure that is built into Tisha B’Av to create this container for grief,” Rabbi Avi Strausberg told the Jerusalem Post. The way the Israeli press has described it in recent days, there was such organic momentum to keep October 7 front-of-mind this Tisha b’Av that the kinnot additions seem almost inevitable.
If the rest of the world has any desire to truly understand the impact of October 7 on the Jewish people, this is a good place to start. But more important is what it says about the Jewish nation’s resiliency. Among all the double standards imposed on the Jews, one of the most egregious is the way the world refuses to accept Jewish grief.
October 7 is a case in point. Although many are eager to rewrite the history of the past 10 months, what shocked so many Jews out of their comfort zones—especially in America—was the cold and heartless popular reaction to the atrocities. On that very day, those who supported the perpetrators of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust started planning their rallies. The next day, the gatherings in support of Hamas barbarism began—with Hamas terrorists still roaming Israeli soil.
While Israel collected its dead, the the West turned to discussing why the Israelis deserved their fate. This was especially prominent on campuses and at increasingly bloodthirsty rallies. Academic discussions ensued about whether it was ethically permissible to dismember Jewish children because of where those Jewish children lived.
In major city after major city, hordes tore down pictures of kidnapped Israelis—the behavior of people devoid of even a negligible drop of human decency.
Politically, it soon became inconvenient to allow Israelis a moment to bury their dead in peace. When an Iranian missile from Lebanon killed a dozen Druze children in northern Israel, all anyone seemed to care about was whether Israel would, in response, “spark a regional escalation.” Some version of that phrase would become standard headline fare in every major newspaper.
When the Iranians bombed Israel some 300 times in one night, seriously injuring a young Bedouin girl, the Biden administration told Israel to “take the win.”
And what’s the phrase uttered by every single public official each time terrorists carry out violence against Israel? “Show restraint.” Nobody seems to be able to find a few minutes to let Israelis grieve. They must at once be publicly scolded for being the victims of a terror attack.
A meek people would allow this bullying to be effective. The Jews have steadfastly refused to fall prey to this, however, both in Israel and the Diaspora. Despite the world spending the better part of a year trying to pretend that everything began on October 8, the Jewish people will inscribe the pain of October 7 into history’s parchment. From the corners of the earth, we will grieve together. Just as when there is joy, we celebrate together.
