Walla (Hebrew) reports that soldiers and servicepeople in the North have been given a dispensation from fasting today for Tish’a B’Av – arguably the weightiest day of mourning in the Jewish calander, the so-called saddest day in Jewish history:
The Chief Rabbis gave permission to soldiers and security forces serving in the North not to observe the Fasting of Tish’a B’Av.
It was on the 9th (Tish’a) of the month Av that the first and second Temples were destroyed, that the Bar Kokhba revolt failed, and that Jerusalem fell to Rome. Haredi Jews mourn the victims of the Holocaust on Tish’a B’Av, and indeed the first murders in Treblinka took place on that day in 1942. In the broadest sense, over the last 2,000 years, Tish’a B’Av has been the day for mourning the loss of the Jewish homeland – and for reflecting on the atocities that not having a home enabled. Now that Israel has been restored, the Chief Rabbis will do nothing to hinder the IDF’s efforts to never let any of those atrocities happen again.
