JTA — Two days earlier than Tisha B’Av, the Israeli scholar Tomer Persico warned that the nation was dealing with one other destruction of Jerusalem, this time of its “ethical and spiritual core” introduced on by Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
Citing the verse from Lamentations, “Look, Lord, and see, youngsters starve within the streets,” he pointed to the pictures of emaciated youngsters now circulating the globe.
“Our nation has turn into one among a merciless minority committing crimes towards humanity,” he instructed a stay Zoom viewers gathered for what was framed as a nationwide soul-searching forward of the quick day, which started on Saturday night time.
“Sure, Hamas ought to have surrendered way back. Sure, they steal help. Sure, they manipulate the media. However ultimately, it doesn’t matter. We may have flooded Gaza with humanitarian provides. We didn’t,” he added.
Different commentators used Tisha B’Av to make the opposite claim. Yedidya Meir, a columnist for the right-wing Channel 14, in contrast accusations of deliberate hunger in Gaza to a contemporary blood libel and mocked Israel’s makes an attempt to reply. He pointed to the International Ministry’s assertion on Sunday denying the cost and calling out Hamas for distributing photos of youngsters with terminal diseases for propaganda functions whereas concurrently saying day by day tactical pauses within the combating and airdrops of meals.
“Do you perceive? I actually don’t,” he wrote, likening the federal government’s blended messaging to the logic of a medieval blood libel: “We don’t use the blood of Christian youngsters to bake matzah. That is vile slander. However to refute the false declare, we determined to close down the matzah bakeries through the hours that Christian youngsters end their research.”
Meir, who’s Haredi, pointed to the Haredi draft exemption as the most recent flashpoint within the nationwide rift and questioned the sincerity of Tisha B’Av unity occasions. “Why is it then that this 12 months, on the eve of Tisha B’Av, there are not any fancy adverts inviting individuals to evenings of dialogue and reconciliation with the ultra-Orthodox?”
Yedidya Meir speaks through the 14th annual Jerusalem Convention of the ‘Besheva’ group, on February 13, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Meir additionally quoted a viral Facebook post by Leah Zakh Aharoni, a non secular mom of a soldier, who wrote that she may “bodily not take the controversy over the draft.” Referring to scenes of Jews clashing at latest protests, she wrote, “I’m scared for us. For our individuals. For what we’re doing to one another,” warning that the Jewish individuals had survived all the pieces in its historical past, besides turning on one another. Forward of Tisha B’Av, she stated, Jews have been combating over “who carries the reality.”
“You possibly can’t scream ‘Torah protects us’ and ignore the moms of troopers sitting up all night time in worry. And you’ll’t scream ‘share the burden’ and spit on individuals who’ve by no means missed a Shacharit since age 5,” she wrote, referring to the morning prayer. “Ahavat Yisrael [love of Israel] isn’t a bumper sticker. It’s a lifeline. And each phrase of hatred is a bullet in our enemies’ weapons.”
Elazar Symon, a rabbi on the liberal Orthodox Hadar Institute in Jerusalem, additionally took to Fb to share a flyer he present in his mailbox promoting a far-right march set for the night time of Tisha B’Av underneath the slogan “Not with weeping, with roaring.”
The occasion, organized by Temple Mount activists and backed by a number of far-right Knesset members, promised a “flag parade” round Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis partitions. In response to Symon, changing mourning with the “secular language of sovereignty” and nationalism was a desecration of Tisha B’Av and of the Temple itself.
Illustrative: Jewish males celebrating Jerusalem Day conflict with police on the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis, Might 26, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
“Selecting sovereignty over weeping for the Temple and praying for its rebuilding is a selection of dying,” he wrote, and went on to quote German theologian Franz Rosenzweig, who warned that when a nation “loves its land greater than the essence of its life,” that love will finally destroy it.
Chatting with the Jewish Telegraphic Company, Symon stated, “I’ll have come off as a bit militant, and I’m not attempting to assault anybody, actually not anyone group,” however stated he was shocked that lower than two years after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, with hostages taken from Israel nonetheless in Gaza tunnels, anybody may recommend that even on Tisha B’Av crying wasn’t acceptable. He additionally famous the parade would doubtless imply one other night time of lockdown for Arab residents of the Previous Metropolis.
“The subsequent time one among these figures calls concern for the hungry in Gaza a progressive distortion, or says prioritizing the hostages is defeatist, bear in mind additionally they assume weeping on Tisha B’Av is a mistake,” he wrote in his publish.
His one comfort was the thought that the messianist motion wouldn’t endure and would at some point be “an embarrassing historic reminiscence, as a result of anybody who doesn’t know cry on Tisha B’Av is giving up everlasting life.”
A memorial signal exhibiting the picture of Shira Banki, an Israeli teenager who was stabbed through the 2015 Jerusalem Delight Parade, is pictured through the twenty first annual Jerusalem Delight Parade in Jerusalem on June 1, 2023. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
A stone’s throw away from the march across the Previous Metropolis partitions, a separate Tisha B’Av gathering will likely be held at Zion Sq., commemorating 10 years for the reason that homicide of Shira Banki, who was stabbed on the 2015 Jerusalem Delight Parade — an occasion that turned a logo of baseless hatred within the capital. The gathering will embrace a public studying of Lamentations, musical interludes, and panel discussions on matters starting from the judicial overhaul to the draft and the rule of regulation. Among the many contributors is Shir Siegel, daughter of former hostage Keith Siegel, an American-Israeli launched throughout a ceasefire in February.
Siegel, 29, additionally spoke on Thursday night’s Zoom and stated she by no means imagined she would turn into so concerned in spiritual conversations. Coming from a secular household, she admitted she had identified little about Tisha B’Av however stated that within the hardest moments throughout her father’s captivity, it was the sense of nationwide unity that gave her and her household power.
She added that earlier than October 7, she hadn’t felt deeply linked to the nation, and that many in her era felt the identical. However now, she referred to as on others to step up, particularly within the political sphere. “When individuals ask me after I’m going into politics, I all the time flip the query again on them. When are you? My request is that all of us really feel extra linked to this nation. We’re all equal. Politics isn’t a nasty phrase.”
From left to proper: Former hostage Aviva Siegel, her daughter Shir Siegel, and husband, just lately launched hostage Keith Siegel, have fun the opening of the Keith Siegel Pancake Home popup at Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, March 26, 2025. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
She ended with the hope that Israel would discover its means out of darkness and into gentle, and pointed to her personal wedding ceremony as a type of marker. She had been engaged earlier than October 7, however the abduction of her dad and mom and the 12 months and a half that adopted put all the pieces on maintain. Now, with the marriage set for Thursday, she stated, “I hope my wedding ceremony offers individuals hope that it may be good.”
In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Sq., a Tisha B’Av gathering will likely be held on Saturday night time instantly after the weekly rally with a public studying of Lamentations, adopted by dialogue circles with the households of the hostages. The occasion’s organizer, Anat Sharbat, invited Israelis of all streams to affix the occasion, telling JTA that the Second Temple was destroyed not due to hatred in the way in which individuals usually think about, however due to the notion that everybody should assume the identical.
“Baseless hatred isn’t just hatred,” she stated. “It’s the incapability to tolerate one other opinion. Unconditional love is the alternative — understanding that we’re completely different, and that this doesn’t come on the expense of unity. Quite the opposite, it’s exactly this range that builds a wholesome, dwelling society. If we are able to perceive that, possibly we actually can begin to rebuild.”
