Tisha B'Av: What Are We Really Mourning?

Each year on Tisha B’Av (Hebrew for “the Ninth of Av”), Jews around the world read the following words from Eicha, the Book of Lamentations: “My eyes are spent with tears, my heart burns, my being melts away over the ruin of my poor people.” On this day, many Jews also recite the traditional Nahem prayer that describes Jerusalem as “the city that is in ruins, despised and desolate, mourning without her children.”

In our current age of having a modern state of Israel — and especially following the reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty in 1967 — these statements can feel like a far cry from reality. So why do many Jews continue to recite these words and to commemorate the Ninth of Av through fasting and other mourning rituals, even as almost half of the world’s Jews now live in their ancient homeland and have sovereignty over their holiest city?