Tisha B’Av 2024

Disaster could have happened to Israel on Tuesday--but it didn’t.

I say disaster could have happened Tuesday because Tuesday was the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, which began at sundown on Monday, August 12, and ended at sundown on Tuesday, August 13. 

Tisha B’Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, a day of prayer and fasting for religious Jews, and the date on which many Jewish calamities have happened throughout history. Both the First and Second Temples were destroyed on Tisha B’Av. The Bar Kochba revolt was crushed on Tisha B’Av.  Ten thousand Jews were killed on the 9th of Av during the First Crusade.  Jews were expelled from many different countries on Tisha B’Av in many different years. The Nazi’s Final Solution was approved on Tisha B’Av. And that is just a short list.

This year Hamas launched 2 of its new M-90 rockets on Tisha B’Av. They were aimed at Tel Aviv. One of those rockets landed in the sea; the other landed in Gaza.  If Tuesday’s rockets had gone where Hamas wanted them to go, it would have been yet another Jewish calamity that “just so happened” to take place on Tisha B’Av. 

If God had wanted to send a message of gloom and doom to Israel, He could easily have done so on Tisha B’Av at the hands of Hamas. The fact that He didn’t is a very good omen indeed.

Margot Armer