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Levi made his living doing what?

helping jewish families grow„

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Cover Story

Synagogue study — an oil on canvas. Judaica Collection, Max Ber

F

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
AppleTree Editor

or generations, Tisha b'Av, the ninth
day of the month of Av, has been the
Jewish national day of mourning.
Traditionally, we mourn the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the
resulting loss of Jewish sovereignty, along with a
degradation in the Jewish people's relationship
with God.
But Tisha b'Av has been the anniversary of
many other tragedies that befell the Jewish peo-
ple. None of these tragedies compares in severi-
ty to the destruction of the Temple, for had that
not occurred, the Jews would not have suffered
as a diaspora people.

---- -

""01"0"4116"61001"1"

The Talmud, in Taanit, states that these five
disasters befell the Jewish people on Tisha b'Av:
• God decreed that the Jews brought out of
Egypt would not enter the Land of Israel.
As related in Numbers, chapters 13 and 14,
Moses sent 12 scouts to explore and observe the
Promised Land. When the scouts returned, all
but two gave such a negative report that the
entire Jewish nation wept and then planned an
insurrection against Moses to return to Egypt.
Rashi teaches that the night of weeping in the
wilderness was Tisha b'Av.
God said: "They wept for no good reason,
but I will make this night for them a time of
weeping throughout the generations."

• The First Temple was destroyed by the
Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.

• The Second Temple was destroyed by the
Romans in 70 C.E.

• In 135 C.E. the Romans captured Beitar,
Bar Kokhba's last stronghold in his war against
Rome (seven miles southwest of Jerusalem).

• In 136 C.E., the Roman emperor Hadrian
built a pagan temple on the site of the Jewish
Temple and rebuilt Jerusalem as the pagan city,
Aelia Capitolina, which Jews were forbidden to
enter.

In later years, the Jewish people would endure
yet more anguish on this day in history.
Notably, on Tisha b'Av of 1492, the once-great
Jewish community of Spain was expelled and
banished from the country. ❑

7/27
2001

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