AV
August 1 – August 30
“In Av we lessen our joy and the mourning period
intensifies until after Tisha B’Av. This enables us
to reflect on the loss of our Holy Temple which has
led to our exile from our land and our spiritual
decline, which will be
rectified with the coming
coming of our Messiah,
speedily in our days.”
Rabbi Dovid Baddiel
Dayan,
Johannesburg Beth Din
THIS MONTH SPONSORED BY:
QUALITY SUGARS, supplier of
SELATI SUGAR
Illustrations based on illuminations from the Morocco Ketubbah for Shavuot,
produced in Morocco in the early 19th century. Manuscript in the Library of the
Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, New York, USA.
Major Jewish Holidays
Minor Jewish Holidays
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Rosh Chodesh
Fasts
ABOUT AV
Tisha B‟Av, the 9th of Av, is the day on which the
Holy Temple was razed by the Romans. When
the flames and fighting died down, only part of
the retaining wall of the Temple Mount was left
standing, and it became a place of pilgrimage for Jews to mourn their terrible loss.
After revolt against Rome in 135 CE, Jews were banned from Jerusalem. In the 4th
century CE the Roman Empire became Christian under Constantine I, who gave
permission for Jews to enter the city once a year – on the 9th of Av – to lament the
loss of the Temple at the wall. In the 7th century, the Umayyad Dynasty took control
of the Islamic world and Jerusalem, building the Dome of the Rock and adding four
courses to the wall. The first Jewish use of the term “Western Wall” dates to four
centuries later and the writings of Italian-Jewish poet and author Ahimaaz ben
Paltiel, followed in 1167 by Benjamin of Tudela‟s description. Then came the Siege
of Jerusalem, after which (1193) Saladin‟s son al-Afdal dedicated the land adjacent
to the wall to Moroccan settlers, who built houses a matter of metres away. Over
time, the wall was almost buried by rubbish, to the extent that when the Turkish
Ottoman Empire took Jerusalem in 1517, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent could not
find it. When the wall was eventually discovered, Suleiman rejoiced; he ordered the
area cleared and swept, and the wall washed with rosewater. He then gave Jews
the right to worship there, and ordered a fortress-wall built around the entire city (the
modern „Old City Wall‟). The Western Wall became a permanent feature in Jewish
tradition from around 1520. Today, the wall stands about 32 feet high, an additional
two layers having been excavated in 1968 to display more of the monumental
squared stones (ashlars) from Herodian times. Its remarkable stability is due to the
weight of those stones, their accurate cuts, and the fact that each row was originally
set back a few centimetres relative to the one beneath it so it could withstand the
soil pressure of the Temple Mount behind.