Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Tisha B'Av 2020

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.

The following is just out:

What did Jerusalem look like at the time of the original Tisha Be'av? (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post)

And Joseph Lauer has noted the following online events in one of his e-mails:
On Wednesday, July 29, 2020, Erev Tisha B’Av, at 8:30 pm Israel Daylight Time (UTC+3) [1:30 PM EDT], a Zoom lecture will be presented in Hebrew by Dr. David Gurevitch, as described below. The subject is “Why Did Vespasian And Titus Destroy the Temple?” [?מדוע אספסיאנוס וטיטוס הרסו את בית המקדש]
The ticket fee is NIS 25 for adults, free for children. [And it appears that payment for more than one adult viewer is on the honor system.]
The site for paying the fee is at https://il.funzing.com/funz/28045 or https://tinyurl.com/y3xsa5p9 (not the clickable one in the article below). [The latter link is here - JRD]

Another video interview, this for signed-up The Times of Israel Community members, is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, July 29, at 1 p.m. Eastern/8 p.m. Israel. “ToI’s Jewish World and Archaeology editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Joe Uziel about the destruction of ancient Jerusalem in honor of the Tisha B’Av fast day. *** Uziel will discuss new finds that have recently hit newspaper headlines, as well as the two major periods of widespread destruction in Jerusalem during the fall of the First and Second Temples.” See “For Tisha B’Av, learn about the archaeological proof of Jerusalem’s destructions -- Access Wednesday’s Behind the Headlines webinar by becoming a ToI Community member today” at https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-tisha-bav-learn-about-the-archaeological-proof-of-jerusalems-destructions/

PaleoJudaica's 2019 Tisha B'Av post is here. The 2018 post has some links.

UPDATE (30 July): More here and here.

UPDATE: (31 July): More here.

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