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Jul

29

What do Jews do: Tisha B’av 2009 (photos from 2008)


Mata at BlogHer wrote a nice post at BlogHer about Tisha B’av, which begins this evening, and includes a fast and ends tomorrow at sundown.  I couldn’t figure out how to get photos into my comments at her post, so I decided to just post them here with a brief narrative.

The occasion commemorates the destruction of the Temple, twice, and other catastrophic events in the Jewish calendar that have occurred at the same time.  Last year, my family and I were in Jerusalem during the holiday and my husband, son and I went, at midnight, to the Western Wall, with many of our fellow travelers, to observe. Here’s what we saw:

This view is from above and west of the Western Wall.  The large wall-looking thing on the right is actually a ramp that goes up to the Temple Mount, which is where Jews theoretically aren’t supposed to go because we don’t the exact spot that is the holiest spot (where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac) and where two well-known mosques reside.  You can see the dome of one of them in the far left corner in the upper part of this photo.  The view straight on are all the people both at the praying sections closest to the wall and then people milling about in the foreground. The women’s side is just below the ramp and the men’s side is on the left.  It’s hard to discern in this photo, but there is a long dividing wall about 1/3 away from the right side of the photo.  That division is extended for this holiday.

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This view is a closer look at the ramp leading to the Temple Mount and the other mosque that is on the mount area.  You can see the women’s section on the left side of the ramp, below.  It’s a long story, but the original ramp collapsed a few years ago and was much further to the right.  The reconstructed ramp really cuts into the women’s observance area.

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This view is from the ground level of the esplanade in front of the wall.  It is absolutely packed, and we were there until about 1 or 1:30am.  As we were leaving, thousands more were coming in and in fact our rabbi and others saw people they knew, and people they hadn’t seen in years, as they came in for the holiday.  All told, they see that somewhere around 250,000 are there at any one time during this evening, peaking around 3 or 4am.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:49 am July 29th, 2009 in Holidays, Israel, Jewish, Judaism, Religion 

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