Jonathan Lieberman
Jerusalem Post, August 16, 2024
“… history teaches that the Jewish people have faced seemingly insurmountable challenges before and have prevailed.”
I am writing this immediately after Tisha B’Av. The saddest day in the Jewish calendar, a day when we commemorate every tragedy that has ever occurred to our People – and there have been many – too many.
I am physically exhausted and mentally drained because this year, Tisha B’Av was unlike any other I have experienced.
In previous years, I often found myself going through the motions, trying to imagine what it was like for the ancient Jews to be exiled from Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and then by the Romans in 70 CE. I struggled to relate to the expulsion from Spain, the massacres during the Crusades, and the numerous other tragedies that befell the Jewish people throughout history. My comfortable life in the UK, with little or no antisemitism and no existential threats, made it difficult to truly connect with the deep sense of mourning that Tisha B’Av demands. I was sitting comfortably, far removed from the horrors that our ancestors endured, and as a result, it was hard to get into the mood of mourning that this solemn day requires.
But this year was different. Since October 7th, everything has changed. I now understand, in a way I never did before, what it feels like to be surrounded by an implacable enemy bent on the destruction of my people and my land. The security and comfort I once took for granted have been shaken, replaced by a newfound awareness of the vulnerability that our people have faced time and time again throughout history.
This year, when I sat down to read the kinot (dirges) on Tisha B’Av, the words resonated with a raw intensity that I had never felt before. The descriptions of the horrors of torture, the massacres of men, women, and children, and the frenzied mobs running amok with a thirst for Jewish blood – these were no longer distant historical events, difficult to imagine from the safety of my comfortable life. They were suddenly and terrifyingly real…..SOURCE