The Jewish Calendar does not change, we do. As we observe Tisha B’av with fasting and lamentations this Thursday, I am flooded with the memories of other places that I have been when this summer sacred fast day occurred, memories of Camp where, as the lone summer sacred day – we cannot say holiday – the whole camp was Tisha B’av. Read more...

The fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, this year falling on July 9, 2020, is one of four fasts connected to the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. Read more...

This week on the Jewish calendar, we mark Tisha B’Av, (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av), a day of national mourning.  Commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the scattering of our early ancestors into exile, Tisha B’Av has become the saddest day of the Jewish year.  Throughout the ages, Tisha B’av has also become a sponge, absorbing millennia of Jewish suffering and calamities.  Read more...