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The Paradox of Tisha b’Av in Jerusalem

Having attended the ritual reading of the book of Lamentations at the Western Wall on the eve of Tisha b’Av—the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples—Daniella Greenbaum shares her reflections:

I was overwhelmed when in a touching display of irony, a group of yeshiva boys began singing the somber tunes of Tisha B’av in the Roman ruins that catch the eye of so many tourists. They stood and swayed in a large oval, bracketed by the easily identifiable Roman columns. Rome had sacked Jerusalem, and destroyed the Temple—it was the reason I was fasting. And there, in the middle of Jerusalem, in the center of Israel’s capital, in Roman ruins, were the Jews, singing about faith and destruction and God’s mercy. . . .

There’s much to mourn [on this day], but sitting in a sovereign Israel, there’s also much to celebrate. What other people have been successful in reclaiming its homeland? The book of Lamentations begins: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” Last night the old city of Jerusalem was not empty, but packed with throngs of people who had come to pray at the Western Wall. The modern state of Israel, the start-up nation that has made the desert bloom, is no tributary, but once again great among the nations. With one breath we mourn, and with another we rejoice.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Book of Lamentations, Religion & Holidays, Tisha b'Av, Western Wall, Zionism

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic