American Jews Asked to Observe Tisha B’av by Aiding Palestine

A call to the Jews of America to observe Tisha B’AV – the 1872nd anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple by the Roman legions – on Sunday, August 5, by contributing to the wartime Palestine land program, was issued today by Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Jewish National Fund in the United States.

“The 1872nd anniversary of the destruction of the Jewish Homeland by the legions of ancient Rome in a drive for world conquest, not unsimilar to the one which is being resisted by the free world today, conveys to us and to the world a message of transcendental importance,” Rabbi Goldstein’s appeal said. “For centuries Jews alone knew the bitter taste of Tisha B’Av. Today Jews are not the only people on whose destruction the forces of hatred and evil are bent. During the past several years the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Dutch, the Belgians, the French, the Yugoslavs and the Greeks have come to know the meaning of national catastrophe.

“In our people’s history Tisha B’Av epitomizes the beginning of the Galuth – life in exile. Tisha B’Av, however, also epitomizes the yearning for the end of the Galuth and the resolve to bring about national redemption and reconstruction through the re-establishment of the union between the people and the land. Pursuing this objective through our support for the wartime program of the Jewish National Fund in Palestine, we are not only helping to strengthen the defenses of the Jewish National Home and increase the powers of resistance at a vital sector of democracy’s front, but, as a people long experienced in resistance to oppression and defeatism, are also helping to strengthen the Will to Victory of the other nations that have been brutally victimized, despoiled and subjugated.”