FEATURE
TO WEEP
Tisha B’Av is our national day of mourning… and sometimes we can use a little help
to get in the mood I BY ROBERT SUSSMAN
The Daum family with the Polish family that they visited
TISHA B’AV (THE 9TH OF THE HEBREW MONTH OF
Av), the saddest day in the Hebrew calendar (which this year falls out on Sunday, 26
July), is nearly upon us, the culmination of
a gradually intensive three-week period of
mourning that begins each year on the
17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz. Not only is it a 24-hour fast (similar
to Yom Kippur in length, as well as the
other restrictions of the day), but we behave like actual mourners, sitting on low
stools (or even the ground) for most of the
day, even going so far as to deprive ourselves of comfort when we sleep. It’s a day
on which we’re meant to avoid socialising
i JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 86
with each other, including even greeting
one another. The sole focus of the day:
mourning all of the Jewish tragedies that
have taken place throughout our history –
from ancient times to the present day –
with special emphasis on the destruction
of our two Temples.
As part of the mourning, we aren’t
even allowed to learn Torah on Tisha B’Av,
apart from those parts relevant to:
mourning in general, Tisha B’Av in particular, and the terrible and heartbreaking
details of the destruction of our Holy
Temples. It’s the one day of the year that
we may even find our local shul showing a
HIDING AND
SEEKING:
Faith and
Tolerance
after the
Holocaust
(2004)
Following the
success of his
first documentary, “A Life
Apart: Hasidim in America”, filmmaker
Menachem Daum, a modern-Orthodox
Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors,
turned the cameras on his own family and
produced one of the most gripping and
engaging documentaries ever made.
Shocked by an extreme and intolerant religious perspective that his wife hears at a
class that she attends, Daum travels from
his home in Brooklyn to Eretz Yisrael in
order to confront his two sons with the
shocking statement and gauge whether
they have been negatively influenced by
such extreme and intolerant views in the
course of their studies. Daum’s sons, who
both learn in kollel (a system where married men receive a stipend for full-time,
advanced-level Talmud study) and belong
to the Chareidi world, essentially agree
PHOTOGRAPHS: SUPPLIED
A time
video to help pass the time and keep our
minds focused on the task at hand (as
we’re not meant to engage in anything
that would divert our attention from
mourning, such as surfing the Net). Such
videos can range from those created each
year especially for the day, by the likes of
the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation
and Yeshiva University (some of the videos from previous years can be found online) just to name a couple, to documentaries and, in some cases, even feature films
that are focused on Jewish tragedies, often with a strong emphasis on recent
tragedies such as the Holocaust.
With this in mind, we’ve assembled
some documentaries that are appropriately sad and thought-provoking. One important note of caution: all of the documentaries discussed below contain graphic footage and themes that are often difficult to watch. Most contain actual archival footage from the period of the Holocaust, as well as detailed, harrowing descriptions from actual survivors.