Monday, July 31, 2017

Tisha B'Av 2017

TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

The Ninth of Av is not specifically a biblical holy day. Rather, it commemorates a number of disasters that happened to the Jewish people, traditionally all on that same day. These include the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and the fall of Betar during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

A couple of recent PaleoJudaica posts involving the Ninth of Av are here and here. See also Lawrence Schiffman's recent post, When the Talmud Was Burned.

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