October 7 Reconnects Israelis With Jewish Day of Mourning

Stand for Israel  |  August 13, 2024

The 2,000-year-old Jewish day of mourning, called Tisha B’Av, is the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar. Many tragedies occurred on this day in history, like the fall of the First and Second Temple, and it’s a holiday to remember all the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, and this year it’s a day to remember October 7 and the trauma many still deal with, reports The Times of Israel:

Dozens of kinot for Tisha B’Av have been written in Orthodox communities alone about October 7, according to Rabbi David Stav, who heads the Tzohar rabbinical group.

To Stav, Tisha B’Av invokes October 7 not because of the onslaught’s death toll — the highest of any massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — but because “our identity is now once again linked to pain, loss, and tragedy that makes Tisha B’Av one of deeper meaning, prayer, and purpose to both mourn and inspire change,” he said.

This is part of the reason October 7 “will enter Judaism’s canon,” Stav told The Times of Israel, adding that thousands of Orthodox, Religious-Zionist synagogues would this year on Tisha B’Av feature kinot referencing or written about the onslaught.