Tishah B’Av

Mark Podwal (b. 1945)
Digitial archival pigment print on paper
7 7/16 x 7 9/16″
USA, 2020
© Mark Podwal

The fast day of Tishah B’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) commemorates the destruction of the  two  Temples  in  Jerusalem. It has also come to memorialize other tragedies for the Jewish people. These include the massacres of Rhineland communities during the First Crusade and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the fifteenth century. Tishah B’Av culminates a three-week mourning period beginning on the seventeenth of the month of Tammuz, which marks the breach of Jerusalem’s walls by the Romans before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. During this period, weddings and other celebrations are prohibited and many do not cut their hair. From the first to the ninth of Av, abstention from eating meat or drinking wine, except on Shabbat, is customary. Many restrictions on Tishah B’Av are similar to those on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, including fasting, refraining from bathing, shaving, or wearing cosmetics, wearing leather shoes, and having sexual relations. Work is permitted but discouraged. The Torah is not studied other than verses relevant to the day. Many other traditional mourning practices are also observed, such as refraining from greeting people, smiling, laughing, and sending gifts. Podwal references the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by replacing three candlesticks with a broken candelabrum from the ancient Temple.