Throwback Thursday Tisha B'Av Special: Don McLean Sings "Waters of Babylon" ("Al Naharot Bavel") in 1975

If you were expecting a joke today, we're sorry to disappoint you. Today is Tisha B'Av, an annual fast day in Judaism which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the Land of Israel.

The day also commemorates other tragedies which occurred on the same day, including the Roman massacre of over 100,000 Jews at Betar in 132 CE. Instituted by the rabbis of 2nd-century Palestine, Tisha B'Av is regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, a day in which all pleasurable activity is forbidden, and is marked by synagogue attendance the night before and during the day. But that doesn't mean there's no singing, or more accurately, chanting.

The highlight of the day's service is the chanting of the megillah of Eicha (Lamentations), written by the prophet Jeremiah. Eicha is read in synagogues and in groups meeting indoors and outdoors.

If Eicha's dirge-like melody and mournful lyrics don't speak to you, there's another musical way to get into the mood. In 1975 Don McLean performed his hit song Babylon in front of a live audience in Dublin and had them singing along with him. The lyrics are just perfect for Tisha B'Av, adapted from Psalm 137 in Tehilim (The Book of Psalms). 

עַ֥ל נַהֲר֨וֹת ׀ בָּבֶ֗ל
שָׁ֣ם יָ֭שַׁבְנוּ גַּם־בָּכִ֑ינוּ
בְּ֝זׇכְרֵ֗נוּ
אֶת־צִיּֽוֹן׃

By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat and also wept,
as we remembered Zion. 

 

   #Throwback Thursday     #TBT

Missing the Old Catskill Hotels on the 17th Day of Tammuz

Today is the Seventeenth day of Tammuz, the start of a three week period that ends with the Ninth day of Av (this year, on July 22-23). During this period Jews worldwide lament the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem so many years ago.

It's hard for us to feel the sadness and desolation of the destruction because we never personally felt the joy of experiencing the celebrations and rituals that took place in the Temples.

But we have a modern counterpart of sorts that we can relate to by recognizing the desolation that has come to the hundreds of once-regal Catskills hotels that brought pleasure and recreation to American Jews in the 1960s through the 1990s.

Not that we're comparing the hotels to the Temples, but in a sense the hotels were temples of Jewish life in their heydey. 

Here's a nostalgic video made up of postcards showing the facades of many of the older Catskills hotels, some of which you may remember visiting, or at least seeing the directional signs posted at highway exits. The music in the background is the Yiddish song Vus is geven, is geven, un nit do (What was, was, and can never be again.)