Tisha b'Av 5776
Undoubtedly correct. Wonder when the caption was added. My Great Uncle worked there in the 1930's....
Anyway, today is Tisha b'Av, the day that we commemorate the destruction of the two Holy Temples, the day that God told us would be a day for crying for generations (in response to the spies lying about the land of Israel - see Numbers 13-14), and the day that many other disasters and tragedies in Jewish history have taken place.
This year, Tisha b'Av was pushed off to the 10th day of Av, and it coincides with the day that the Jews of Gush Katif in Gaza were expelled from their homes eleven years ago.
A longer lists of the tragedies is
here.
Labels: First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Gush Katif, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av, Western Wall
UNESCO chief blasts 'Palestinian' attempt to have Western Wall declared a Muslim holy site
As the 'Palestinians' decry Israel for supposed 'changes to the status quo' on the Temple Mount, they are attempting to create one of their own by orchestrating a UNESCO vote (you will recall that they are members of UNESCO - that's why the US hasn't paid dues in four years) declaring the Western Wall (pictured) to be an Islamic holy site. UNESCO director general Irina Bukova is not pleased, and
blasted her own board today for bringing the matter to a vote.
“We all have responsibility to UNESCO’s mandate, to take decisions that
promote dialogue, tolerance and peace,” said Bokova. “This is especially
important for young people, who should be nurtured and educated for
peace.”
She issued her statement on Tuesday, in advance of
Wednesday’s highly publicized vote by UNESCO’s Executive Board in Paris
on a draft resolution, which “affirms that the Buraq Plaza [the Western
Wall] is an integral part of al-Aksa Mosque/al-Haram al-Sharif.”
A
statement put out by her office said that Bokova “appeals to the UNESCO
Executive Board to take decisions that do not further inflame tensions
on the ground and that encourage respect for the sanctity of the Holy
Sites.”
Her office added that the discussion “could be seen to
alter the status of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls, inscribed
on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, and that could further incite
tensions.”
The “protection of culture heritage should not be taken hostage, as this undermines UNESCO’s mandate and efforts,” Bokova said.
She
has consulted with nations on the 58 member board to encourage them to
pursue constructive dialogue that promotes tolerance and mutual respect
such as outlined in the mandate of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Jerusalem is a city that is
holy for Jews, Christians and Muslim and it should be a place of
dialogue for all three faiths, she said.
Bokova called on “all
parties to ensure that cultural heritage, including religious, is
preserved and accessible to all and to resume dialogue in the spirit of
mutual understanding.”
The six-page draft resolution – submitted
by Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait, and the United Arab
Emirates on behalf of the Palestinian Authority broadly condemns Israeli
actions in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
At no point does
the resolution mention the Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem,
which dates back to biblical times. Nor does it reference the Temple
Mount or the Western Wall, which was part of the retaining wall King
Herod built for the Temple Mount more than 2,000 years ago. It also
relies solely on Arabic names for the holy sites on and around the
Temple Mount.
Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama Hacohen
called the resolution “a total Islamization” of a site that is revered
by both Jews and Muslims.
Funny that we have not heard equally vehement opposition to this resolution from US President Hussein Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, UN Ambassador Power or National Security Council Chief Rice.
I wonder why the self-proclaimed 'most pro-Israel administration evah' has not come out against this. /sarc
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, First Temple, Irina Bukova, Jerusalem, John Kerry, Kotel plaza, Old City of Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, Samantha Power, Second Temple, Susan Rice, Temple Mount, UNESCO, Western Wall
Khameni tweets photo of Obama committing suicide
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone. For those who do not know, today is Tisha b'Av, a day that commemorates the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem 1,940 and 2,601 years ago. For a list of the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people on this day, go
here.
I just returned from afternoon prayers at the Kotel (Western Wall - the sole remnant of the Temple that is standing) myself.
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khameni is celebrating in his own way:
What could go wrong?
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Barack Hussein Obama, First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av
A mathematical analysis of Gaza's casualties
I just came back from the place you see in the picture below, and it was much less crowded than in past years. In fact, the crowds this year were so small that the buses actually came in the Dung Gate and parked right outside the parking lot. I cannot remember the last time that happened on Tisha b'Av - usually you have to walk outside the walls of the Old City.
Lots of people dump irrelevant links to their own blogs into my comments (which is one of the reasons I moderate comments), but today I got one that was really good and I urge you all to read it. It's called Math v. Anti-Semitic Propaganda and you can find it
here.
Labels: civilian casualties, First Temple, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Operation Protective Edge, Second Temple, Third Temple, Tisha b'Av
Tisha b'Av 5774
Monday night and Tuesday are Tisha b'Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
Five tragedies befell the Jewish people on Tisha b'Av
in ancient times, the two most important of which were the destruction
of the two Holy Temples:
- It was decreed that the generation which left Egypt
would remain in the desert for 40 years and not enter the land of
Israel, after believing the inaccurate report of 10 of the 12 spies in
the year 2449 (the current Jewish year is 5774).
- The first Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed on 9 B'Av in the year 3339.
- The second Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed on 9 B'Av about 1944 years ago.
- The city of Betar was captured and tens of thousands of Jews were killed in the year 3893.
- The wicked Turnus Rufus plowed the site of the Bet
Hamikdash and its surroundings and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, also in
the year 3893.
Since these tragedies occurred on 9 B'Av, it was decreed as a day of fasting and mourning.
Other tragedies that happened on 9 b'Av include:
- 4,000 Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I in the year 5050 (18 July 1290)
- 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain by Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in the year 5252 (2 August 1492)
- Word War 1 started in 5674 - 1 August 1914 - with Germany declaring war on Russia
- The Jews of Gaza were to have been expelled from
their homes on Tisha b'Av nine years ago, but the Israeli government
postponed the expulsion for a day in an effort to avoid making this
list.
You can find out more about Tisha b'Av, including online audio and visual programs and a live webcast, for which you can register
here.
Posting tonight and on Tuesday (especially early in the day) may
be a little lighter than usual. I don't fast well, and must sleep
tonight or I will get caffeine addiction headaches.
For those of you who are fasting, have an easy and
meaningful fast, and may this day be a holiday next year instead of a
day of mourning.
Labels: First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av
Pope's visit to Israel has something to offend just about everyone
If you're a Jerusalemite, you might want to consider making a
schlissel challah for the Sabbath (a challah with a key inside it, traditionally made on the Sabbath after Passover as a sign of an easy time making a living during the upcoming year). The flag above is meant to depict just that.
That flag is all over Jerusalem because the Pope is going to be here Sunday and Monday. In a bid not to offend anyone, the Pope is managing to
offend everyone.
The
pope’s decision to fly straight to Bethlehem from Jordan would be a
symbolic lift to the Palestinians at any time. But its resonance is even
greater given his tremendous popularity, his focus on the downtrodden,
and his timing amid the recent
collapse of peace talks and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s
unity pact with the militant group Hamas.
Francis,
who said on Wednesday that his three-day visit was “purely a religious
trip,” is striving for balance, and so on Monday he plans to become the
first Vatican leader to lay a wreath on the grave of Theodor Herzl, the
founder of Zionism. Paying homage to a man who envisioned the Jewish
state has become standard for leaders visiting Israel, but the plan has
enraged some Palestinians, in another sign of the risks the pope faces
in this charged region.
At
each stop on the orchestrated itinerary, the Vatican’s focus — to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of a historic meeting of Catholic and
Orthodox patriarchs — could be overshadowed as all sides dissect
Francis’ every action. Already, his effort at ecumenical outreach,
traveling with a rabbi and an imam from his native Buenos Aires, has led
to criticism that he is not fully engaging local religious leaders.
...
The
Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that the Vatican’s
use of “State of Palestine” terminology with regard to the trip
reflected the United Nations General Assembly’s 2012 resolution that upgraded Palestine’s status, and that arriving in Bethlehem by helicopter made pragmatic sense.
Father
Lombardi said that the pope was starting his trip in Jordan partly
because Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, when a visit to Israel would be
awkward, and that a Mass in Manger Square, the place of Jesus’ birth,
was fitting for Sunday.
...
In
Bethlehem, the pope will meet President Mahmoud Abbas as a peer,
underscoring the Vatican’s support for the United Nations’ upgrade of
Palestine’s status; welcome banners in Manger Square show the two men
and a “State of Palestine” logo.
He
will also meet with families hand-picked to highlight the hardships
Palestinians face under Israeli occupation, and with children from
nearby refugee camps, though he will not enter the camps as predecessors
did.
The
diplomatic dance means that instead of traversing the half-dozen miles
between Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives by motorcade, the pope will
take a helicopter to Ben-Gurion International Airport for a presidential
welcome demanded by Israeli protocol, and then reboard for a flight to
Jerusalem.
In
Israel, which is trying to upgrade diplomatic relations with the
Vatican established two decades ago, the pope will take a whirlwind tour
on Monday, cramming into five hours visits to the Western Wall, Mount
Herzl and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, as well as meetings with
the president, prime minister, chief rabbis and Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem.
No terror victims will meet with the Pope.... We wouldn't want him to be offended by the prospect of what a 'state of Palestine' might mean for Israel's Jews. And no rightists will meet with him either. Several of the more prominent ones have been handed
administrative orders to keep away from the Pope. Two Jewish youths were arrested in Jerusalem on Friday for
posting signs against the Pope.
Two Jewish youths were arrested in Jerusalem on Friday morning for
posting notices against the pope, which featured sentiments such as
"impure, leave our Holy Land," and "return the stolen Temple tools," a
reference to the tools and treasures stolen from the Second Temple by Rome.
...
A police spokesperson who announced the arrest Friday cited
"intelligence information gathered by the Shabak (General Security
Services) testifying to the extreme right-wing activists' intentions to
disrupt the pope's visit planned for next week, and to take provocative
illegal actions to cause inter-religious tensions ahead of the visit."
"In other to foil these activities, administrative orders were given
to distance the extremist activists for a temporary period of four days,
in order to balance as much as possible security needs with harm to
individual rights," added the police.
Administrative orders are a relic of the British
Mandate-era legal system, allowing the detention or distancing of
individuals without any charges or due process, over suspicion they may
harm public order.
Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir addressed the recent spate of arrests,
commenting "the time has arrived to teach the police about freedom of
expression and democracy. The Jewish people are allowed to demonstrate
against the pope."
Kind of reminds you of the
college kids in the last post, doesn't it? The Pope can't hear any criticism. And you wonder where the kids get it....
And then, there are the
traffic jams that all Jerusalemites will face.
The police have posted signs on light poles fences and vehicles stating
that from 4 p.m. on Sunday till 1 p.m. on Monday, no vehicles will be
permitted to park on Hanassi or Radak streets, which intersect opposite
the residence of the president. Vehicles of violators of the ban will be
inspected for bombs and then towed to Liberty Bell Park.
...
There will be no English at the ceremony on Monday.
At the
request of the Vatican, there will be only two languages – Hebrew and
Italian, the president’s spokeswoman Ayelet Frish said.
I have yet to see a schedule of where the Pope will be on Monday, but the city is likely to be tied in knots. I'm escaping to Tel Aviv.
Labels: Abu Mazen, administrative detention, City of Jerusalem, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Pope Francis I, Second Temple, Shimon Peres
You kick my shins, I'll kick yours
One of the results of the lack of individual accountability for Knesset members is that Israel's government usually operates using the method of 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.' Now, we're seeing the opposite, and it's becoming a full-blown war.
Infuriated at Jewish Home's Ayelet Shaked's vote in committee on Wednesday for criminal sanctions against Haredi draft dodgers, Yated Neeman, the mouthpiece of the mainstream Lithuanian Haredi community, does an
expose on the budget for 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria (link in Hebrew).
The article claims that the 'settlements' (which presumably does not include the Haredi 'settlements' of Beitar Ilit and Kiryat Sefer) are an economic and security burden.
The article claims that budgets are passed through hidden methods for 'isolated settlements' and for dangerous roads, and that doesn't even take the security costs into account. According to Moshe Gafni, a Haredi MK from the United Torah Judaism party and the former chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, "the reality in which a company of soldiers [100-200 soldiers] guards one and a half 'settlers' at fantastical expense is a set way of operating."
"We're talking about the most sectoral group in the country," said Gafni. "They worry about themselves without end, and add paragraphs and sub-paragraphs [into the budget] that bring them billions."
The line beneath the headline reads:
So long as we are paying in the hard currency of damaging the Haredi yeshiva world - will their partners in Yesh Atid ask them 'where is the money'?
The article claims that in 2011, the number of 'settlers' increased by 5% while the government's cost of maintaining them increased by 38%.
The article is one of three in Yated this Friday against the 'settlers' and it says that it's the first in a series.
During the debate over drafting Haredim, Gafni warned that he had information that would show how much the government spends on 'settlers' - a contingency of the Jewish Home party, and that he would release it if Jewish Home was instrumental in bringing about criminal sanctions for Haredi draft dodgers.
'You scratch my back, I scratch yours. You kick my shins, I kick yours.' Sounds a lot like the period of the destruction of the Second Temple (which was destroyed due to baseless hatred). And no, that's not meant to exclude Jewish Home's actions on the draft from the definition of 'baseless hatred' either.
Labels: draft, God, Haredim, IDF, Israeli Knesset, Jewish Home party, Second Temple, settlements, Torah
When Jews give up holy sites
Indeed.
Labels: archaeology, First Temple, Second Temple
France condemns the destruction of the Second Temple
Yaniv Salama-Scheer reports that
France condemned the destruction of the Second Temple.
I was trying to pump as much information as I could out of a well
connected source I had built an excellent working relationship with,
we’ll call him Pierre, who often provided me with information other
reporters covering French diplomatic activity in the Middle East didn’t
get. I had called him up with for some clarifications on the rumors
about Regev and Goldwasser, left a message, and decided that since it
was my first ever Tisha B’Av in Jerusalem, that I would go down to the
Kotel for services.
The scene was overwhelming. There was a sea of people, Haredim,
Hassidim, Hilonim, tourists, photographers and security, all crammed
into the the Western Wall plaza. Bachurim were sitting on the floor in
mourning, grown men were crying, it was a very emotional and inspiring
sight, and I was completely caught up in it. As I wandered around taking
it all in, my phone began buzzing in my back pocket and brought me back
into a world I thought had been left behind at the office for the day.
“Hello?!?! Hello?!?!” I shouted over the noise of the crowd. It was Pierre returning my call.
“Hi Pierre,” I began somewhat hurriedly. “Listen, I can’t really talk
now, I’m down at the Kotel for Tisha B’Av, can I call you back in the
morning?”
It didn’t occur to me that he probably had no idea what the Kotel
was, or what Tisha B’Av signified. Pierre was an inquisitive type, and
sometimes over the course of our conversations, he ended up asking more
questions than I did. This was one of those times. “Sure, pas de problem, we speak in the morning,” he said. Before I could hit the end button, I heard it.
“Mais attend,” – wait he said – “You are where?”
I was certainly not in this conversation. My head was elsewhere. I
was antsy, and I wanted to get off the phone. I didn’t want to start
sermonizing on the meaning behind this day of mourning, that it was the
day that God had decided that future generations would weep in order to
commemorate past transgressions. That Israel as a whole on this day
would relive the lost hope felt in the desert as they began to angrily
follow Moses and question their faith. That because tears were directed
inwards instead of toward the Heavens, that for one day a year the
Almighty would not mend His children’s broken hearts. So I went with the
thirty second ESPN highlight version.
“I’m at the ruins of the temple in Jerusalem. It was destroyed today,
so people are coming from all over the country to mourn and to pay
their respects.”
Pierre was a government official, not a ten year old attending Jewish
day school and already well acquainted with the likes of Vespasian,
Titus, and Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai. There was dead silence on the other
end of the line, and you could almost feel the panic sinking in on the
other side.
“But the president was briefed on the Middle East this morning,” he
began shakily. “Nobody mentioned this catastrophe.” and then it came.
“France strongly condemns the destruction of your Temple!”
For the shocking ending of what is apparently a true story,
read the whole thing.
Labels: Bernard Kouchner, Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, France, Gilad Shalit, Hamas, Hezbullah, Nicolas Sarkozy, Second Lebanon War, Second Temple
Special for Tisha b'Av: Virtual tour of the Temple Mount
You can find a virtual 360-degree panoramic tour of the Temple Mount
here (Hat Tip:
Dani K).
Labels: First Temple, Second Temple, Temple Mount, Third Temple, Tisha b'Av
Why Jews commemorate our defeats
Twelve and a half years ago, Mrs. Carl and I and the then-baby took a week-long trip to Spain using frequent flier mileage and compensation from Iberia for sending my luggage to Cuba a couple of years before (really!). For the Sabbath we were in Madrid and stayed in a hotel called the Trafalgar, because it was the only hotel that was in walking distance to the Chabad emissary, who was the only Kosher place to eat on the Sabbath.
The emissary had 20-30 people at his table, some of whom were Brits, and I can recall that when I mentioned the name of the hotel where we were staying, one of the Brits remarked that it was odd that the Spaniards chose to remember their defeats. Well, it's not so odd. We Jews do the same thing. It's called
Tisha b'Av.
On that date the following awful events occurred:
586 BCE – The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians
70 AD – The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans and the Jews
fled into the Diaspora – mostly areas surrounding the Mediterranean
including Spain.
133 CE – Simon bar Kochba Revolt with remaining Jews warring against the Romans brutally butchered in the final battle at Betar.
1290 – July 18 King Edward I expelled the Jews of England
1492 – August 2 – Expulsion of Jews from Spain as a result of the
Inquisition. Among them a likely Jew, Christopher Columbus, who, with
his Jewish navigators, took his 3 ships to look for riches in the New
World.
1941 – August 2 – The German Nazi SS murdered 600 Jews in Targivica,
Ukraine with the Ukrainians participating joyously as “Willing
Executioners.” (Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhaggen 1996 No. 1 bestseller)
So why do we remember our tragedies? Watch the video
here to find out.
I will be offline for parts of today and tomorrow, because synagogue services are longer, because I need to contemplate the destruction, and because blogging while sitting on the floor is not easy. When I return from the afternoon prayers at the Kotel tomorrow, I will blog more regularly.
A reminder that the Kotel (Western Wall) is the outside wall of the Temple Mount on which the Temple actually stood, and visiting it on Tisha b'Av can be particularly moving.
May we be privileged to see the Third Temple on the Temple Mount, speedily and in our time.
Labels: First Temple, Kotel plaza, Second Temple, Temple Mount, Third Temple, Tisha b'Av, Western Wall
Muslim Temple denial continues
As I am sure most of you are aware, today is the first day of Chanuka, which celebrates the Jewish people retaking the Second Temple from the Greeks more than 2000 years ago. If you'd like to wish me a Happy Chanuka by sending some Chanuka gelt, please click the PayPal link on the right.
The Muslim world, meanwhile, continues to
deny the very existence of the two Jewish Temples, and to do all it can to destroy the vast amounts of evidence of their existence.
The story of Hanukah is the archetypal story of the fight for
religious freedom. It has been adopted and celebrated by American
presidents at the White House for more than a decade, as an American
tribute to the biblical roots of the country’s national dedication to
freedom. For 2,000 years religious Jews, Christians and Muslims, and
later secular scholars, have all believed that the temple ruins lie
beneath the two Muslim mosques that were later built upon the Temple
Mount by conquering Arabs after the death of Muhammad — and that the
surviving pre-Islamic “Wailing Wall” is the outer wall of the Temple
courtyard that existed in Roman times during the ministry of Jesus.
However, 13 years ago, the late Yasser Arafat (and since then his
political heirs have taken up the cause) abruptly decided that there is
no evidence that there ever was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and,
therefore, that Jews — and ipso facto Israelis — have no right to claim
Jerusalem as their religious, historical and political capital. A wave
of Temple denial is now sweeping the Arab and Islamic world and many
fellow intellectual travellers in the journalistic and archaeological
world are joining the bandwagon.
The historical, archaeological and literary evidence for the
existence of the sacred Jewish temple underneath and beside the two
Mosques that now bestride the Temple Mount is overwhelming. It includes
thousands of scholarly articles and books supported by scores of
archaeological digs and studies of historical documents. The best
introduction to the topic is Cambridge Professor Simon Goldhill’s most
readable book, The Temple of Jerusalem.
For over a decade the Muslim authorities (the Waqf) who now control
the Temple Mount have been despoiling its archaeology through illegal
excavations and site destruction. Nevertheless, the physical evidence
that they have discarded, and which Israeli archaeologists pore over
like forensic scientists at a crime scene, shows signs of the temple’s
existence, the most recent being coins minted by the Hasmonean rulers of
Judea who were the royal and priestly heirs of the Maccabees, as well
as coins minted during the first Jewish revolt against the Romans in 70
AD. It was these pagan conquerors who burnt the temple and brought its
sacred treasure back to Rome, and whose golden menorah was beautifully
reproduced on the Arch of Titus. A three-dimensional copy of this
menorah now stands in front of the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem,
walking distance from where the original once stood, 2,000 years
earlier.
As the Bible is rarely taught in our schools and universities, and as
it has, at the same time, become popular to argue that only the winners
write history (that it is to say there are no historical facts), let us
see how some of the biggest winners in Middle Eastern history have
written about the Temple in Jerusalem. I mean the religious and secular
scholars of the conquering Muslims who made the land of Israel part of
their Islamic empire until the Turks lost it to the British during the
First World War.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Chanuka, First Temple, Second Temple, Third Temple
Image: Second Temple column tossed out by the Wakf
Journalist Michael Freund posted the image above on his
Facebook page. For those who cannot recognize what it is, Freund explains.
Here,
in a pile of rubble and trash on the Temple Mount, lies a marble column
from the Second Temple that was broken and then discarded by the Muslim
Wakf which effectively controls the area. Our heritage is under
assault. It is time for the Israeli government to act, and take back
control of the Temple Mount!
It's long past time. But don't hold your breaths waiting for it to happen.
Labels: archaeology, Second Temple, Temple Mount, Wakf
Bodies of massacred Jews found on Temple Mount?
The bodies of Jews who were massacred by the Romans during the destruction of the Second Temple some 1940 years ago may have been
found on the Temple Mount.
According to daily newspaper Israel HaYom, [archaeological journalist Benny] Liss screened a video clearly showing thousands of human skeletons in what appears to be a mass grave.
Liss "told the amazed audience that the film had been shot in a spacious, underground cavern in the area of the Mercy Gate [Sha'ar Harachamim in Hebrew, a sealed gate in the wall of the Old City, opposite the Mount of Olives, ed.], near the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, but just outside it," the newspaper reported. Liss raised the possibility that the skeletons were the remains of 6,000 Jews, mostly women and children, killed on the Temple Mount when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple.
The massacre is described in the writings of Josephus Flavius, who defected from the Jewish to the Roman side and witnessed the destruction.
The movie shows Liss entering the cave, followed by a lighting technician and cameraman. The three first pass through a narrow passage and then enter the cave with the skeletal remains. As soon as Liss left the cave, Antiquities Authority (IAA) staff resealed the entrance to it, he said.
"The Romans stayed on the Temple Mount for a month after the destruction of the Temple until going on to conquer the upper city [today's Jewish Quarter],” says Liss. “They had to get rid of the thousands of decomposing bodies and the most obvious place to do this would have been the natural caves on the upper slope of the mount, around Mercy Gate."
Hmmm. By the way, because the IAA resealed the cave entrance, the official line is that 'no one can determine' whether the bodies are Jewish or Muslim.
Labels: Jewish history, Second Temple, Temple Mount, Tisha b'Av
3,300 consecutive years living in Israel
I remember being taken to meet Margalit Zinati, whose family has lived in Israel for 3,300 years, and in the town Pekiin since the destruction of the Second Temple about 1942 years ago, during a summer trip I took to Israel in 1972. Her remarkable story, an appropriate one for the days leading up to Tisha b'Av, is
here.
Labels: Arab denial of Jewish history, Second Temple
Learn to yearn
The mourning for the Holy Temples shifts up a gear tonight with the onset of the Jewish month of Av and the '9 days' (which last ten days this year thanks to the 9th being a Sabbath). For those of you who are wondering what it's all about,
this might help.
Labels: First Temple, Second Temple, Third Temple, Tisha b'Av
Second Temple seal found in Jerusalem
Here's another one of those discoveries that makes the Arabs seethe because it proves once again that there was Jewish life in Israel more than 2000 years ago. Archaeologists sifting through
dirt that the Waqf plowed over during the course of construction on the Temple Mount have
discovered a receipt from the Second Temple period.
The Antiquities Authority announced Sunday the discovery of the original store credit - an ancient seal that was used to show payments for offerings.
A 1cm by 1cm ancient seal was found with the words "Pure for God" written in Aramaic, the Antiquities Authority said.
It is the first time anything has been discovered dealing with The Second Temple administration and helps put a human spin on the day to day activities of the period.
It was discovered in Jerusalem by volunteers sifting through the dirt excavated from the north side of the Shiloah Pools in the City of David.
Due to the richness of the archaeological history, every bucket of dirt is sifted before being thrown out. About 30 coins have been found this way.
My daughter found a coin when we went to help them sift dirt during the Sukkot holiday four years ago.
Labels: archaeology, Second Temple, Temple Mount
Tisha b'Av 5771
Monday night and Tuesday are Tisha b'Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
Five tragedies befell the Jewish people on Tisha b'Av in ancient times, the two most important of which were the destruction of the two Holy Temples:
- It was decreed that the generation which left Egypt would remain in the desert for 40 years and not enter the land of Israel, after believing the inaccurate report of 10 of the 12 spies in the year 2449 (the current Jewish year is 5771).
- The first Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed on 9 B'Av in the year 3339.
- The second Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed on 9 B'Av about 1941 years ago.
- The city of Betar was captured and tens of thousands of Jews were killed in the year 3893.
- The wicked Turnus Rufus plowed the site of the Bet Hamikdash and its surroundings and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, also in the year 3893.
Since these tragedies occurred on 9 B'Av, it was decreed as a day of fasting and mourning.
Other tragedies that happened on 9 b'Av include:
- 4,000 Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I in the year 5050 (18 July 1290)
- 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain by Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in the year 5252 (2 August 1492)
- Word War 1 started in 5674 - 1 August 1914 - with Germany declaring war on Russia
- The Jews of Gaza were to have been expelled from their homes on Tisha b'Av six years ago, but the Israeli government postponed the expulsion for a day in an effort to avoid making this list.
You can find out more about Tisha b'Av, including online audio and visual programs and a live webcast,
here.
Posting on Tuesday (especially early in the day) may be a little lighter than usual (many of Monday's posts were scheduled in advance - including this one. I don't fast well, and must sleep tonight or I will get caffeine addiction headaches).
For those of you who are fasting, have an easy and meaningful fast, and may this day be a holiday next year instead of a day of mourning.
Labels: First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av
