By Ben Sales
Families of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip and Israelis gather for the ritual of Tisha B’Av at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, August 12, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
(JTA) — If Iran begins its long-awaited attack on Israel sometime before Tuesday night, some Jews may say the timing of the strike had been preordained for almost 2,000 years.
On Monday at sundown, Jews worldwide begin the annual fast day of Tisha B’Av, which lasts until nightfall on Tuesday. The fast day principally mourns the destruction of the two ancient Jewish temples that stood in Jerusalem and that were destroyed millennia ago.
But over time, whether by design or chance, a series of other Jewish calamities have occurred on the same day. And some have also worried that the lessons Jewish sages drew from the destruction of the temples — that in-fighting among Jews teed up their destruction — are not being heeded today.
“I find myself sitting and worrying — and no, not because of the threat from Iran or Lebanon, but because of what we’ve become,” Dina Epshtein wrote on Facebook from Israel as the fast began there. “Because of the legitimacy we’ve given to uncompromising hatred.”
Israelis have been bracing themselves for an Iranian attack since the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, with fears that the strike could trigger a broader war. On Monday morning — hours before the start of the fast in Israel — Fox News reported that an attack could take place in less than 24 hours.
Past Jewish calamities have taken place on or around Tisha B’Av, such as the beginning of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka and the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Now, Jews the world over are worried that they’re about to add another tragedy to the Tisha B’Av list.
“I feel sick to my stomach going into Tisha B’Av this year – the saddest, most mournful day on the Jewish calendar which begins tonight,” Cantor Scott Borsky wrote on Facebook. “Israelis, and the world, are preparing for Iran’s response to the assassination of the Hamas leader. Western intelligence sources say it may happen on Tisha B’Av.”
Traditionally, rabbinic sources have seen the story of the temples’ destruction as a cautionary tale about the dangers of “baseless hatred” between Jews. That reading has made Tisha B’Av an occasion to urge Jewish unity and warn against demonizing rhetoric.
Those searching for evidence of intra-Jewish divides could find them in the headlines, as top Israeli leaders feuded publicly on Monday, even as the government shored up contingency plans for a multi-front war. After Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called the idea of “total victory” over Hamas “gibberish,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded that Gallant had adopted “the anti-Israel narrative.”
Israelis posted online that examples of societal rifts were all around them.
“On the day we mark the destruction of the temple, I’m really really worried that soon we’ll mark the destruction of the State of Israel because we’re really really one step away from it,” Ofri Shaked, an Israeli medic, wrote on Facebook. “We’re our own biggest enemies.”
If Iran does choose Tisha B’Av as the date of its attack, it won’t be the first time Israel’s adversaries tracked the Hebrew calendar. The Yom Kippur War took Israel by surprise in 1973 when many of its soldiers were fasting and praying in synagogue. Fifty years later, the Oct. 7 attack shocked Israel while many of its citizens were celebrating the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah. In 2002, the deadliest terror attack of the second intifada took place when Palestinian terrorists bombed the Park Hotel in Netanya while families were at the Passover seder.
Some Jews said they were taking strength from the day of mourning. And some said the story of the destruction of the first temple — retold in the biblical Book of Lamentations, which is read on Tisha B’Av night — resonated this year in particular, the first Tisha B’Av after the Oct. 7 attack.
“In past years I read Eikha about rape of women and abduction of children, and I connected to it as poetic exaggeration,” Rabbanit Leah Sarna wrote on Instagram, using Lamentations’ Hebrew name. “This year we lived the exaggeration, enemies who practiced these very same levels of cruelty… It helps to remember that our people has been here before and survived.”
And as Israelis have stockpiled supplies and taken precautions ahead of an attack, some found humor in the timing.
“We bought food and water for the safe room for nothing,” one person posted. “In the end, Iran is going to attack on the fast day of Tisha B’Av.”