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Opponents of Israel’s judicial overhaul see parallels in Tisha B’Av, this week’s Jewish day of mourning
(JTA) — The image started circulating almost as soon as the Israeli government finished voting to approve a divisive piece of legislation this week. “Shisha B’Av,” it said in white Hebrew letters against a black background – Hebrew for the Sixth of Av.
That was the Hebrew date on Monday, when right-wing lawmakers signed off on a law limiting the judiciary’s ability to review government decisions.
But the image, which spread widely within the sweeping movement protesting the legislation, wasn’t just marking the calendar. It was also invoking the fast day of Tisha B’Av, the Ninth of Av, just days away, which mourns the destruction of the ancient Holy Temples in Jerusalem. Rabbinic tradition says that collapse of Jewish sovereignty resulted as much from infighting as from external attacks — if not more so.
“No one is missing the symbolism on the left,” said David Selis, a graduate student at Yeshiva University who is researching the use of Jewish text and images in Israeli protests over time.
Selis had participated in multiple protests against the legislation in Jerusalem but was in New York City when it passed. In the hours after the Knesset vote, he tweeted a suggestion to read the Book of Lamentations, Tisha B’Av’s central scripture, outside the Israeli consulate when the holiday began on Wednesday night.
Others also suggested turning Tisha B’Av into a focal point for Jews mourning what they see as a catastrophic development in Israeli politics. Jewish leaders in Israel and the United States are invoking the fast day in their statements, rabbis are planning to speak about Israel at their congregations’ services and special events are being held to observe the day of mourning in public ways. The groundswell of attention, some say, could make Tisha B’Av newly relevant to non-Orthodox American Jews and secular Israelis, who have historically been less likely to observe its rituals.
“We are now a little over 24 hours away from Tisha B’Av, the day when we mark the loss of our sovereignty 2,000 years ago, due to internal fighting,” Julie Platt, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, said during an online briefing about the legislation on Tuesday. “The parallels to today are frightening.”
Yedidia Stern, president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, added on the call, “I see radicalization right now on the street. And I really hope we’ll be able to contain it…. Let’s hope Tisha B’Av will be only a memory, not a reality for us.”
According to Jewish tradition, a string of calamities have befallen the Jews on the Ninth of Av. The destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE — both known as “hurban habayit” in Hebrew — are the most prominent in a list of events cited by Talmudic rabbis in prescribing a day of fasting, prayer and mourning rituals. A series of more recent Jewish tragedies also took place on or near Tisha B’Av, including the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, France in 1306 and Spain in 1492; the beginning of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust, and the deadly 1994 bombing at the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
No one has died in Israel because of the right-wing government’s judicial reforms. But those who oppose the government say its aggressive bid to sap Israel’s judiciary of its independence does threaten the country’s security and stability in the future, and will put vulnerable Israelis at risk absent the court’s protection. Reportedly beginning with former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan 50 years ago, Israelis have often referred to the modern state of Israel as a “Third Temple,” or third Jewish commonwealth, following those that existed millennia ago.
“In Israel, even in the most secular spaces, people are referring to what the government is doing as ‘hurban habayit,’” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of T’ruah, the liberal rabbinic human rights group. “It’s really clear that this is just a major incident that is going to have really lasting negative repercussions for Jews and also for Palestinians.”
The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and the second by the Romans. But the ancient rabbis offered a slew of additional explanations that were enshrined in classic Jewish texts, including the Talmud. Chief among them, regarding the Second Temple, is the idea that “sinat chinam,” or wanton hatred, among Jews weakened the city, and there are others.
“One of the reasons that the Talmud mentions for the destruction of Jerusalem is the way that the judges were judging,” Jacobs said. The explanation is complex, she said, but boils down to the idea that the judges were applying the law very narrowly and not bringing in their own wisdom.
“The reason the Rabbis taught us all these reasons that the Temple was destroyed was not so they could say, ‘This is what people were doing back then. Weren’t they terrible?’” Jacobs said. “It’s about teaching us a lesson for today.”
Jacobs’ group has signed onto the public reading of the Book of Lamentations, known in Hebrew as Eicha, outside the Israeli consulate in New York City on Thursday afternoon, along with a growing number of local synagogues. The event marks the first time that the protest movement of Israelis abroad, which has organized solidarity rallies in New York City and elsewhere over the last six months, has partnered with synagogues.
The resonance makes sense, said Rabbi Rachel Timoner of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, a Reform congregation that is participating in the rally.
“Someone said they are experiencing an overwhelming ache in their body, just like when someone they loved died,” Timoner said. “This is the exact feeling that Tisha B’Av is designed to evoke in us, to get us in touch with the collective grief of our people through time, and equally now.”
Timoner said she planned to speak “very very briefly” about “the pain and grief that Israelis and all who love them are feeling right now” during services on Wednesday night, even as many Israelis in her community will be joining a special Hebrew-language service targeted toward them elsewhere in Brooklyn.
Not everyone believes it’s appropriate to draw such a stark connection between Tisha B’Av and the contemporary political crisis.
“The talk of the lessons of Tisha B’Av are not as apropos as most of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s opponents would like us to believe,” Jonathan Tobin, editor in chief of the right-leaning Jewish News Syndicate, wrote in a column on Tuesday.
“While neither side in this dispute should behave as if it has a monopoly on truth or righteousness,” he added, “it ill behooves Jews and friends of Israel looking on from abroad to be lecturing the prime minister and his supporters about sinat chinam, especially when the mindless hatred against fellow Jews seems to be mainly flowing against those who support judicial reform.”
And some in Israel will be connecting Tisha B’Av to the protest movement not by honoring the holiday but by breaching it. Contrary to local ordinances, a number of restaurants in Tel Aviv plan to open their doors Wednesday night. Some say they’re doing so in protest of the government or as a gesture of principle to their secular Israeli patrons.
But even for some on the right, the Tisha B’Av timing has been a cause for concern. David Friedman, former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, called the confluence of the vote and the fast day “very bad timing.”
“Given the striking parallels between Israel’s current internal rift and the infighting that caused the destruction of the Second Temple 2000 years ago, why would the Israeli Government proceed with its Judicial Reform bill on the eve of Tisha B’Av?” Friedman, who has long backed Netanyahu but has criticized the judicial reforms, wrote on Twitter.
The judicial legislation is not the first time that the Israeli political calendar has delivered a major crisis on Tisha B’Av. In 2005, the government proceeded with its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on the eve of the holiday, against the fierce protests of many right-wing and religious Israelis who believed that ceding land represented a catastrophe for the Jewish people.
“I always found it chilling that the disengagement, that for many Israelis was physical destruction, was conducted on the eve of 9 of Av,” said Masua Sagiv, an Israeli professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies contemporary Judaism in Israel. “And now, again, with legislation that promises to be the opening of a constitutional structural change threatening Israeli democracy and the basic fabric of the society in Israel, [the] Israeli government chooses this date.”
Sagiv published an essay in April, as Israel marked its 75th birthday, noting that the Jewish people’s attempts at sovereignty have tended to fall apart after 75 years. So the fact that the current conflict reached a turning point so close to Tisha B’Av felt especially poignant to her.
“Symbols receive their power from the interpretation we give them,” Sagiv said. “But here these interpretations seem inescapable, and still an opportunity to remind us what is at stake, and how grave the danger is, and how much work is ahead of us.”
Some in Israel will be connecting Tisha B’Av to the protest movement not by observing the holiday but by breaching it. Contrary to local ordinances, a number of restaurants in Tel Aviv plan to open their doors on Wednesday night. Some say they’re doing so in protest of the government or as a gesture of principle to their secular Israeli patrons.
Selis said he thought it was more likely that Israelis would channel their political alienation through the traditions of the day. More modern practices include discussions of current events, which some communities use as a way to recognize the dissonance of lamenting Jerusalem’s destruction in a country that has a rebuilt Jerusalem as its capital.
“I think Tisha B’av is now going to be back on the secular Israeli consciousness,” Selis said. He added, “Secular or traditional sorts of Israeli society might be realizing that giving up control of so much of religious functioning of the state was a bad idea and… that they do, in fact, want there to be some religious identity for the state.”
Jacobs offered a similar prediction. “Many people in Israel feel like Judaism is something that’s coercive, something that’s only practiced by certain segments of the population, something that is used and misused for state power,” she said. “So it’s amazing that Israelis and others are saying, ‘No, actually, we’re going to claim Judaism and we’re going to find meaning in it.’”
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Three-Quarters of Jewish Students Worldwide Report Concealing Religious Identity on Campus, New Survey Finds
College students hold dueling demonstrations amid Israel’s war with Hamas in April 2024. Photo: Vincent Ricci via Reuters Connect
The vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on university campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism, according to a new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS).
A striking 78 percent of Jewish students have opted to “conceal” their religious affiliation “at least once” over the past year, the study found, with Jewish women being more likely than men to do so. Meanwhile, 81 percent of those surveyed hid their support for Zionism, a movement which promotes Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel, at least once over the past year.
Among all students, Orthodox Jews reported the highest rates of “different treatment,” with 41 percent saying that their peers employ alternative social norms in dealing with them.
“This survey exposes a devastating reality: Jewish students across the globe are being forced to hide fundamental aspects of their identity just to feel safe on campus,” ADL senior vice president of international affairs Marina Rosenberg said in a statement. “When over three-quarters of Jewish students feel they must conceal their religious and Zionist identity for their own safety, the situation is nothing short of dire. As the academic year begins, the data provides essential insights to guide university leadership in addressing this campus crisis head on.”
The survey said additionally that 34 percent of Jewish students reported knowing a Jewish peer whom someone “physically threatened on campus,” while 29 percent reported difficulties in attaining religious accommodations from their professors, confirming months of reports that Jewish students face both social and institutional discrimination at universities.
Tuesday’s survey comes amid a flood of data illustrating the severity of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Earlier this month, another survey commissioned by the ADL and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) found that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it.
Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent).
Additionally, 50 percent of respondents said that anti-Zionist faculty have established de facto, or “shadow,” boycotts of Israel on campus even in the absence of formal declaration or recognition of one by the administration. Among those who reported the presence of such a boycott, 55 percent noted that departments avoid co-sponsoring events with Jewish or pro-Israel groups and 29.5 percent said this policy is also subtly enacted by sabotaging negotiations for partnerships with Israeli institutions. All the while, such faculty fostered an environment in which Jewish professors were “maligned, professionally isolated, and in severe cases, doxxed or harassed” as they assumed the right to determine for their Jewish colleagues what constitutes antisemitism.
Administrative officials responded inconsistently to antisemitic hatred, affording additional rationale to the downstream of hatred. More than half (53.1 percent) of respondents described their university’s response to incidents involving antisemitism or anti-Israel bias as “very” or “somewhat” unhelpful, and a striking 77.3 percent thought the same of their professional academic associations.
In total, alleged faculty misconduct and administrative dereliction combined to degrade the professional experiences of Jewish professors, as many reported “worsening mental and physical health, increased self-censorship, fear for personal safety,” and a sense that the destruction of their careers and reputations was imminent.
Higher education institutions in the US are showing some signs of recognizing the problem.
This week, administrators from across the US will amass in Washington, DC for a three-day symposium on combating campus antisemitism. Organized by AEN, which promotes academic freedom unfettered by boycotts and ideology, the event will be attended by administrators representing dozens of institutions such as Harvard University, Barnard College, and George Washington University, all of which have drawn scrutiny for responding to campus antisemitism in ways that critics — including Jewish community leaders and senior US officials — have described as insufficient if not dismissive.
Dozens of conversations and seminars will be held over the three-day event, with many being led by AEN faculty, as well as staff from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and experts from the Jewish Federations of North America and the American Jewish Committee.
“College administrators are the ones tasked with recognizing and addressing antisemitism on campus, as well as setting the tone for behavioral expectations and campus culture,” Miriam Elman, executive director of AEN, said in a statement. “Today’s antisemitism, though, often takes forms that can be less familiar or harder to identify, making it all the more important to provide campus leaders with the tools, training, and support they need to recognize and respond effectively.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Norway to Donate Proceeds From Israel Soccer Match to Doctors Without Borders in Gaza
Alexander Sørloth of Norway scores the 1-2 goal during the FIFA World Cup Qualifier football match between Israel and Norway on March 25, 2025, in Debrecen. Photo: Photo: VEGARD GRØTT/Bildbyran/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The governing body of soccer in Norway announced on Monday that profits from an upcoming Norway-Israel qualifying match for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will go to the international NGO Doctors Without Borders to support humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip.
The Norwegian Football Federation, also known as the Norges Fotballforbund (NFF), made the announcement ahead of the sold-out game on Oct. 11 scheduled to take place in Oslo. Roughly 23,000 tickets were sold for the game at Ullevaal Stadium. The organization first announced in mid-August that it would donate profits from ticket sales for the match to a humanitarian cause that helps Palestinians in Gaza, but its selection of Doctors Without Borders was not publicized until Monday in a statement on NFF’s website.
“The money will be earmarked for the organization’s emergency relief work on the ground in Gaza and the surrounding areas affected by the war,” the NFF said. One of Norway’s largest investment companies had pledged to donate an additional 3 million Norwegian kroner – which is almost $307,000 – to Doctors Without Borders, according to the federation. The NFF did not disclose the name of the company but said both the NFF and Doctors Without Borders know the identity of the donor.
NFF President Lise Klaveness said that as a member of FIFA and the UEFA, the Norwegian governing body of soccer “has to deal with Israel participating in their competitions.”
“At the same time, we cannot and will not be indifferent to the humanitarian suffering that is taking place in the region, especially the disproportionate attacks against civilians in Gaza,” she added. “We want to give the profits to an organization that saves lives in the Gaza Strip every day and that contributes with active emergency aid on the ground, and that is what Doctors Without Borders does.”
The NFF previously shared that extra security measures will be taken at the match on Oct. 11, including limited capacity, to ensure the safety of everyone in attendance.
Also on Monday, Gabriele Gravina, president of the Italian Football Federation, said in an interview with national public radio that his organization “will coordinate with UEFA to implement some humanitarian initiatives” surrounding Italy’s game against Israel on Oct. 14. The Italians will host Israel in Udine.
Klaveness and Gravina are both part of the UEFA’s 20-person executive committee, which also includes Israel Football Association President Moshe Zuares.
When the NFF announced last month that it will donate profits from the Norway-Israel match on Oct. 11 to a humanitarian cause, Zuares’s organization urged its Norwegian counterpart to “make sure the money is not transferred to terrorist organization.” The Israel Football Association also said it “would be nice” if the Norwegian Football Association condemned the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“We do not usually advise associations regarding the use of match revenue, even if it is obtained thanks to a match against our proud national team, but we will deviate from our custom this time,” the Israeli Football Association said in a statement. “It would be nice if some of the amount were directed to try to finding a condemnation by the Norwegian FA of the Oct. 7 massacre that claimed the lives of hundreds of Israeli citizens and children, or action in favor of the release of 50 hostages – and please, make sure that the money is not transferred to terrorist organizations or to whale hunting.”
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In Show of Support, Belgian PM Attends Concert of Israeli Conductor Disinvited From Music Festival
Lahav Shani, future chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, stands on stage after receiving the Golden Medal of Honor from the City of Munich. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa via Reuters Connect
Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever attended a concert by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra over the weekend in a sign of solidarity after a Belgian music festival rescinded its invitation to the orchestra because its future chief conductor is from Israel.
Organizers of the Flanders Festival Ghent canceled a scheduled performance by the Munich Philharmonic set for later this week due to concerns regarding Tel Aviv-born conductor Lahav Shani, and his “attitude to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv.” Shani is the chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and will take over as chief conductor of the Munich orchestra for the 2026/27 season.
The cancellation of the concert sparked widespread criticism and accusations of discrimination and antisemitism. The move was condemned by senior German and Belgian politicians, including Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter and the prime minister of the Belgian region of Flanders. De Wever, who also previously criticized the decision, wrote in a post on X that he traveled to the German city of Essen on Saturday to attend a performance by Shani and the orchestra, and to “strongly condemn” the decision.
“Let me be very clear: there will never, ever be any room for racism and antisemitism in this country. That is where I draw the line,” the prime minister wrote in a post on X, which included a picture of him shaking Shani’s hand.”I therefore strongly condemn the recent cancellation of the Münchner Philharmoniker by the Flanders Festival Ghent, solely on the basis of the origin of conductor Lahav Shani. I insisted on conveying this message to him personally and expressing my appreciation for his contribution to the power of music.”
After being booted from the Flanders Festival Ghent last week, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra was invited to perform on Monday at the Konzerthaus Berlin as part of the Berlin Music Festival. The short-notice invitation and guest performance was organized as a joint effort by the Berlin Philharmonic (also known as the Berliner Philharmoniker), festival organizers, and in cooperation with the Konzerthaus Berlin. Shani conducted the orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s violin concerto and extracts from Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan and Isolde.”
In a released statement, the board of the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation expressed “full solidarity” with Shani, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, and violinist Lisa Batiashvili, who was scheduled to perform alongside them at the Flanders Festival.
“Lahav Shani has been closely associated with our orchestra since his debut in Sept. 2020,” the board said. “During this time, we have come to know him as a thoughtful artist and a person who – especially with regard to the Middle East conflict – has repeatedly spoken out in favor of peace, dialogue, and reconciliation. Excluding an artist from a festival because of his nationality is wrong and contradicts our understanding of music and culture. We are convinced that, especially in these times, music should build bridges rather than deepen divisions.”