Two S.D. shuls to observe Tisha B’Av together

Tifereth Israel Synagogue, San Diego
Tifereth Israel Synagogue, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (Press Release) – Members of Ohr Shalom Synagogue and Tifereth Israel Synagogue will gather at the latter congregation, 6660 Cowles Mountain Blvd., at 8 p.m. for Tisha B’Av services during which the Book of Lamentations will be read and host Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal will explore the topic: “Is the Modern State of Israel the Dawn of Our Redemption.”

The following morning, Tifereth Israel will also conduct Tisha B’Av services in observance of the fast commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

The Conservative congregation noted in a circular announcing the event that “built by King Solomon, the First Temple was the most important place in ancient Judaism. It was destroyed when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. The Second Temple was built on the site of the First Temple, completed in 516 B.C.E. and eventually destroyed, this time during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The destruction of the two Temples took place on the same day – the ninth of Av – about 656 years apart. These two events were so tragic that the ancient rabbis declared the anniversary of the Temples’ destruction a day of mourning. This is the origin of Tisha B’Av.

“The day also commemorates other tragedies which occurred on the same day, including the Roman massacre of over 100,000 Jews at Betar in 132 CE. Coincidentally, the ninth of Av is the day that Jews were expelled from England in 1290, as well as the day that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492 and, most recently, the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust.

“The Book of Lamentations which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem during the Tisha B’Av service, is followed by the kinnot, a series of liturgical dirges which lament the loss of the Temple and Jerusalem.”
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Preceding provided by Tifereth Israel Synagogue