We fast. We mourn. We chant Eicha, the book of Lamentations.
We sit low to the ground and dwell in the dust of our people’s tragedies, reciting the litany of loss that has shaped the Jewish story: Zion’s toppled towers; Jerusalem, once great among the nations, brought low; the expulsions from Sepharad and the Rhineland; our decimation in the Holocaust.
It is a day not only of memory, but of reckoning. A day when we allow ourselves to feel the full weight of Jewish history pressing down upon us. And this year, that weight feels heavier still.
We enter Tisha B’Av 5785 still reeling from the trauma of Oct. 7, the most brutal slaughter of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust. Families torn apart. Children and grandparents dragged into the Gaza Strip. Whole communities erased. The pain is raw, the grief ongoing, the hostages still not home. Fifty souls remain in the clutches of Hamas—dead or alive—languishing in terror’s dungeons.
We mark this day amid a global wave of antisemitism, where our dead are met with indifference, our students with intimidation, our people with vilification. In city squares and on college campuses, hatred once whispered now marches and shouts.
And yet, Tisha B’Av is not only about what has been destroyed; it is also about the spark that endures. Amid the dust, it reminds us that even the most shattered vessel can be mended. That out of desolation, renewal is possible. That Am Yisrael Chai. “The People of Israel live.”
This season, as the Conference of Presidents led a mission to Israel right after the 12-day war with Iran, standing with the people of the south and the north, meeting with families of hostages, and even further strengthening the bonds between American Jewry and the Jewish state, we were reminded again of our sacred obligation: to hold fast to our people, our homeland and our hope.
We return from Israel with renewed urgency: to defend the bilateral relationship that safeguards both American interests and Israel’s security; to champion the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism; to insist, in every forum, that Jewish lives and Jewish dignity are not negotiable.
And we do all this not as a collection of factions, but as one people, united in destiny even when we are divided in opinion. That unity is our answer to destruction. That solidarity is our act of faith.
As I have written in years past: Tisha B’Av reminds us not only of our brokenness, but of our capacity to rebuild. Just as Jewish memory preserves the pain, Jewish hope insists on the future. There is a time to mourn, but also a time to dance.
This day, for all its sorrow, marks the beginning of teshuvah. In just a few weeks, we will enter the month of Elul, the season of return, repair and renewal. We will sound the shofar. We will prepare our hearts. And we will, once more, stand before the King of Kings.
And we will do so as one people, who on Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur seek pardon and redemption as a collective.
We believe in the eternal bond between the United States and Israel. We believe in the sacredness of Jerusalem—not only as a city, but as an idea. We believe that the Jewish people are not a relic of the past, but a promise to the future. Dor l’dor.
So yes, we mourn on Tisha B’Av. We grieve for our beloved dead, from the flames of the Temples to the pogroms of Hamas. But we also rise. We link arms. We build. For this day teaches not only despair but resilience. Not only lamentation but resolve. And it reminds us, with painful clarity, that even after catastrophe, the House of Israel endures.
