Tisha B'Av

Tisha B'Av (Hebrew: תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב, romanized: Tišʿā bəʾĀḇ, lit. 'Ninth of Av') is an annual ta'anit (fast day) in Rabbinic Judaism. (Karaite Judaism fasts on the 7th and 10th of Av.) The day commemorates a number of disasters in Jewish history, above all the destruction of both of the great temples in Jerusalem: Solomon's Temple, destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (in 587 BCE), and the Second Temple, destroyed by the Roman Empire (in 70 CE). The Three Weeks, a period of Jewish communal sorrow, begins on the Seventeenth of Tammuz and ends on Tisha B'Av, a day regarded as "the saddest day in the Jewish calendar", mourning the loss of the two temples. It is categorized as a day destined for tragedy. Tisha b'Av falls in July or August in the Gregorian calendar. Observances of the day include five prohibitions, most notable of which is a 25-hour fast. The Book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem, is read in synagogue, followed by the recitation of kinnot, liturgical dirges that lament the Israelites’ loss of the Temples and Jerusalem. As the day has become associated with remembrance of other major calamities which have befallen the Jewish people, some kinnot also recall events such as the murder of the Ten Martyrs by the Romans; expulsions from England, Spain, and elsewhere; massacres of numerous medieval Jewish communities by Crusaders; the Holocaust; and the October 7 attacks.