This Tisha B'Av, New Tragedies To Remember

At the West End Synagogue, drawing connections to current events around the world has long been an integral part of commemorating Tisha B'Av - the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. This year, though, the Reconstructionist congregation on Manhattan's Upper West Side will mourn a tragedy that hit a bit closer to home.

In the months following the destruction of the World Trade Center's twin towers last September 11, the congregation's ritual committee decided that the focus of this year's commemorations of Tisha B'Av - which falls this Wednesday night and Thursday - would be "the experience of living through, watching, an edifice be destroyed that has been a part of our daily lives," said Susan Schorr, the synagogue's lay liturgist.

The West End Synagogue is not alone. For many Jews across the country, preparations for Tisha B'Av, or the ninth day of the month of Av - traditionally marked by fasting and reading, while seated on the floor, from the Book of Lamentations - are taking on added meaning in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, as well as the ongoing suicide bombings in Israel and the rising tide of antisemitism around the world. While in relatively peaceful years past, many congregations, especially those affiliated with the more liberal strains of Judaism, eschewed the elegiac holiday, this year rabbis are looking at the day as an opportunity to reflect on the current state of the Jewish people and even of the world at large.

Joshua Heller, a Conservative rabbi who currently works in a part-time capacity at lower Manhattan's Downtown Synagogue, which serves the neighborhoods adjacent to Ground Zero and saw many of its congregants displaced, said he understands why people would connect September 11 and Tisha B'Av. "We as Jews often look to recast the tragedies that we experience in our own times in light of the experiences of our ancestors," he said, noting that Tisha B'Av is traditionally associated not only with the Temples' destruction, but also with other calamities of Jewish history, such as the expulsion of Jews from Spain and, more recently, the Holocaust.

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