7 tragedies that befell the Jewish people on Tisha Be’Av

The year was 1313 BCE. Moses sent 12 spies from each of the tribes to scout Canaan, which later became the Land of Israel. They were meant to bring back a report to the Jewish people, who were encamped in the Sinai Desert.
Many years before that, God had promised Israel to Abraham and his descendants and the time had come, following the miraculous exodus from Egypt, for the land to be settled.
However, it wasn’t to be.
When the 12 spies returned, 10 lied and said that although the land “does flow with milk and honey” and presented large fruits that grow there to the Jewish people, “the people who live there are very powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.”
They also reported seeing giants, which they claimed could not be defeated.
Two of the spies, Joshua and Calev, silenced the Jewish people, who had begun to panic, and told them that the land was conquerable, that they should go now and take the land. They praised the land as well. However, no one believed them, and the Jews chose to stand with the other 10 spies’ accounts.
Despite these two truthful accounts, the Jewish people cried and said they would rather go back to Egypt and die at the hands of the Egyptians.
This night was the 9th of Av.
The Jewish people were punished for believing the lies and slander of the 10 men, and God decreed that the Jews were to wander in the desert for 40 years.

The First Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians on the 9th of Av in either 421 BCE or 423 BCE (opinions on the exact secular year differ).
The destruction was led by Nebuchadnezzar II, who attacked and besieged Jerusalem. It is estimated that at least 100,000 Jews died during this short time.
Nebuchadnezzar’s army plundered the Temple and then set fire it on fire. The building burned for 24 hours until just after midday on the 10th of Av.
The city of Jerusalem was also destroyed by the Babylonian army. Many of the High Priests serving the Temple, as well as prominent figures were also murdered by the Babylonians.
Gold, silver and many of the holy vessels used in the Temple were taken to Babylon. At least 100,000 Jews were massacred and many remaining Jews were forced into exile in Babylon, which is present day Iraq.
This exile lasted 70 years, and brought an end to the autonomous rule of the Jewish people over Israel.

The Second Temple, which was built in 349 BCE, stood for more than 400 years.
It was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, led by the man who would become Emperor Titus. He and his armies besieged Jerusalem and as a result more than 2 million Jews living in the city died from disease, starvation or were murdered when the Roman armies entered the city.
For three weeks, battles between the Jews and the Romans raged, and on Tisha Be’Av it culminated in a final battle. The Jews lost, despite putting up a strong fight.
Although Titus purportedly ordered that the Temple not be burned, his soldiers set it alight later that day. Then, the Romans brought idols into what was left of the Second Temple and offered up sacrifices to their gods. The holy vessels and any gold found were stolen by the Romans, as well.
More than 1 million Jews were forced into exile in Rome, which led to today’s Diaspora.
It’s also believed that between 80,000 and 100,000 Jews were sold into slavery.

In July 1290, a general expulsion of Jews was ordered by King Edward I. He made it clear that by November 1, all Jews had to leave the country or face execution.
The Hebrew date on which this edict was announced was Tisha Be’Av
About 2,000 Jews were exiled from England, while less than a hundred converted to Christianity.
Interestingly, the Tower of London served as the main point of exit for Jews who traveled out of England via the Thames River. Were that not bad enough, the exiled Jews were charged a deportation tax by the constable of the tower.
The edict of expulsion ordered by the king was not viewed by historians as a sudden decision. For more than 200 years prior to this, Jews were subjected to increased persecution, which had already started with rumors of blood libels and pogroms in the 12th and 13th Century.
Following the edict in 1290, Jews were not allowed to live in England until the 1650s, under Oliver Cromwell.

On July 31, 1492 (the 9th of Av that year), practicing Jews living in Spain had to make their final decision: Convert to Christianity or leave the country.
If conversos – converted Jews – stayed and continued to keep their faith in secret, but were found out by members of the Inquisition or exposed by neighbors, they would be tortured brutally into admitting their “sin” and later be burned, all of which was ordered by the Church.
In March 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella instituted the Alhambra Decree, otherwise known as the Edict of Expulsion, which ordered the expulsion of practicing Jews from the country, ranging between 45,000 to 200,000.
However, almost 100 years before, in 1391, over half of Spain’s Jews had converted to Christianity as a result of religious persecution and pogroms.
The 1492 Edict of Expulsion was instituted mainly to eliminate the influence of practicing Jews on Spain’s large converso population and ensure they did not revert to Judaism.

On August 1, 1914 (the 9th of Av), Germany declared war on Russia opening the gates of fire, fury and death that was the First World War.
The war affected Eastern European Jewry very badly as many Jews were forced to flee their homes and communities because of the fighting. It’s estimated that one million Jewish soldiers also served in the war. Moreover, on both sides of the war – Czarist Russia and Germany – Jews were seen as traitors. In Czarist Russia, Jews living near the front lines were forced out of their homes with no notice by the army. A central part of the fighting also took place on the Eastern Front, where many Jews lived and were also forced to flee the fighting.
The end of World War I also brought with it a rise in antisemitism in both Germany and in Russia during the 1917 Revolution and beyond.
Some Rabbis and historians even hold that World War I and the consequences following the carnage is what led to World War II and the Holocaust.

On July 23, 1942, Treblinka death camp, which was located in a forest northeast of Warsaw, began its operations as a death camp and continued operating until October 1943. The Hebrew date that operations began at the death camp was Tisha Be’Av.
On the exact same day, the first deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.
In just 15 months, the Nazis murdered about 870,000 Jews there.
Treblinka was the second-largest and one of the fastest killing machines the Nazis developed to gas Jews. Whereas 1.1 million people were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940 and 1945, it took just more than a year to murder close to 1 million Jews at Treblinka, along with several thousand Romanis (Gypsies).
The Germans demanded that the Judenrat organize the deportation lists. The head of the Jewish council in the Warsaw Ghetto was Adam Czerniakow. He refused to give lists of names or help the Nazis with organizing the deportation lists.
On July 23, 1942, Czerniakow committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule; he would rather die than assist the Nazis in the slaughter of the Jews.