Tisha B’Av: Remembering Our Enemies, Guarding Against Ourselves
Every year on Tisha B’Av, my thoughts return to places that shaped my understanding of what it means to be Jewish in Israel.
As children, my father had a tradition. Instead of spending the day only reading about destruction, he took us to Hebron.
We visited Beit Hadassah and walked through the exhibition documenting the 1929 massacre. The photographs were difficult to look at. Families who had lived peacefully in Hebron for generations were brutally murdered by Muslim neighbors they had trusted. We then continued to the ancient Jewish cemetery, where history no longer felt like something written in books. It felt painfully real. Those visits taught me an important lesson.
The conflict did not begin in 1967. It did not begin with settlements. It did not begin with the establishment of the State of Israel. Long before any of that, Jews were murdered simply because they were Jews.
That historical truth matters. We cannot build a future by pretending our enemies do not exist or by rewriting history.
But Tisha B’Av teaches another lesson as well. A few hours before the fast ended this year, I watched footage from the evacuation of Gush Katif. Suddenly I could smell the greenhouses again. I remembered swimming to the reef with friends, Friday afternoons at the beach in Mawasi, and the unique beauty of that extraordinary community.
Like many Israelis, I still carry the pain of those days. I also remember standing at intersections, knocking on Likud members’ doors, desperately trying to stop the disengagement. I remember the feeling that our society was tearing itself apart. That memory is just as important as the loss itself.
Pain is understandable. Bitterness is human. But turning pain into revenge is a choice. Today, the political reality has changed.
The Right holds power. That is exactly why the responsibility is greater than ever. This week I watched public money being used to charter a helicopter so that Rabbi Dov Lior could visit northern Samaria. Whether one supports Rabbi Lior or not misses the point.
At a time when northern communities are still struggling to recover, reservists have carried an unbearable burden for nearly three years, and countless families continue rebuilding their lives after October 7, this is not what responsible leadership looks like.
Power has a way of changing people. Too often, those who once fought against political arrogance begin repeating the very same mistakes once they become the ones making decisions.
Tisha B’Av reminds us that national destruction rarely begins with military defeat. It begins when internal division, arrogance, and political obsession become stronger than our sense of shared responsibility. Remember Hebron. Remember Gush Katif. Remember the victims of our enemies.
But also remember that today, we hold the responsibility. If we truly learned the lessons of Jewish history, then our response to power should not be triumphalism. It should be humility. Our mission is not to settle old scores. It is to heal Israeli society while protecting the Jewish state we have rebuilt together.
That may be the most important lesson Tisha B’Av still has to teach us.
