The Meaning of Tisha B’Av to Us: A Black Rabbi’s Perspective

For Black Jews the meaning of Tisha B’Av is never far away.  It is not merely a remote holiday commemorating the destruction of the temple in 586 BC and 70 AD. The fact that the temple was destroyed on the same day—the 9th of  Av—suggest that it was not an accident.  Just as lightening does not strike the same spot twice, calamity does not follow a people by coincidence. For us, destruction,  captivity, and the loss of our ancestral heritage have been a recurring and defining experience.

The reason a permanent homeland with one unified temple has been so important to the Jewish people is because for most of our history we have been nomadic, differentiated from within and segregated from without. From the time that G-d told Abram to “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house” (Gen 12:1) we have been a people in search of a home. The very word “Hebrew” עברי  in it most basic definition connotes this transitory and peripatetic trait. The forces that push us in the direction of G-d and toward each other and conversely away from G-d and against each other are like the currents of a tide, a seemingly endless cycle.  From the completion of the Temple by King Solomon in 953 BC until the division of Israel following his death was a very brief moment of only twenty-three years when the people, the nation, and the temple of Israel stood harmoniously.[1]  Dislocation is the norm of our existence.

History also teaches us that internal divisions led to greater separation and alienation. It is interesting that we solemnly commemorate the destruction of the temple in 586 BC by the Babylonians rather than the lost of ten of the tribes of Israel during the Assyrian exile which occurred over a century earlier in 722 BC.  Is the loss of a building more important than the loss of most of the Jewish people? Or, is it that in the prioritizing of oppression that Jews are want to do, we are less sympathetic to the tribes carried away in the Assyrian exile because the Northern Kingdom separated itself and therefore “deserved” its destruction more than those lost in Babylonian exile?  And, why didn’t the Kindgom of Judah do more to help Jews who were fleeing death and captivity? [2] As we mourn and fast on Tisha B’Av, let us remember all the victims of Jewish exile and take responsibility for their descendants where ever they may be.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? Psalm 137:1-4

 

On Tisha B’Av we consider how all of these exiles are connected.  Each blow to the Jewish people sent refugees into the world to continue their wandering alone. Many of the dispersed of Israel naturally found themselves in the nearest parts of Africa. Over the centuries, Jews from these locations followed established trade routes as either the merchants, their human cargo, or as willing travelers to the more distant kingdoms in southern and western Africa. The patterns of assimilation that have been so carefully documented among Jews of Europe repeat themselves in Africa; i.e. Jewish identity is lost through a combination of religious suppression, forced conversion, and intermarriage with the dominant populations.  By the fifteenth century, only a few but highly distinctive elements of their Judaism remained such as the practice of circumcision among some tribes, prohibitions against the eating of pork, agricultural festivals that correspond to Sukkot and Shavuot, and the presence of Hebrew words for G-d in several African languages.[3]  Following this line of logic, historical evidence, and scriptural prophesy, it is plausible—if not highly probable—that a certain number of  Africans of Jewish descent where captured in the Arab slave trade and then European slave trade that continued for over five hundred years and resulted in over twelve million Africans being taken to the western hemisphere. There they were forced to worship alien gods and cut off from the G-d of Israel.

Black Jews know what it means to lose touch with your land, your people, your language, your culture, your history. Tisha B’ Av is very important to us. It reminds us of the harshest consequences of prolonged exile.  It is not the vengeance of an angry God, it is the just punishment of a backsliding people; a people whose forebears rebelled against G-d but whose descendants will be redeemed because “Israel is my son, even my firstborn” said God to pharaoh. (Exodus 4:22).

As a  people we strayed from G-d’s commandments and as a punishment for our transgressions lost what was most precious and dear. This long nightmare of separation and estrangement should make those of us who have been found, returned, and restored, more thankful, more appreciative, and more grateful.

Our commemoration of Tisha B’Av recalls all the suffering of our people in the ancient land of Israel. It embodies the persecution of our people in Europe, and it includes over two thousand years of painful wondering. It connects the slavery of Egypt with the European slave trade.  The Nile, the Mississippi, and the oceans that connect them across time and space are filled with the tears of our people. The pogroms of  Russia are bond through us to the state-sponsored slaughters that occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921); Chicago, Illinois (1919); Wilmington, North Carolina (1898); Rosewood, Florida (1923) and  Springfield, Illinois(1908).  These sites mark some of the places on the map our human history where our people shed their blood. The Warsaw Ghetto in Poland is inextricably bound in our souls with the ghettos of Watts, Detroit, Newark, and Harlem.

Hallowed  places like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Buchenwald, which are remembered for the suffering that our people endured there during the Holocaust, stand in our memory along with the forgotten places where our Israelite ancestors where taken into captivity at Goree Island, Senegal;  Bridgetown, Barbados; Kingston, Jamaica; and Jamestown, Virginia. History records that the European slave trade in Africa began on August  8, 1444.  Traditionally Tisha B’Av occurs between late July and early August. It is difficult to know for certain the exact date of Tisha B’Av in the year 1444 due to complex changes in the Gregorian calendar over time and other assumptions that must be made in these calculations, yet the period includes a time frame that is normally considered sacred during the proper observance of Tisha B’Av.

“Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof. . . Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand. . . Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.. . And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.” Deut 28:30-64

Tisha B’Av is not a faint memory for us. It is an ongoing reality as the majority of those Jews who were lost and exiled over the centuries are still lost and exiled. We remember them, mourn for them, pray for their return, and work daily for the return of the entire scattered House of Israel.  On this and every Tisha B’Av we pray that the promise of a merciful God will soon be fulfilled.

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations,. . . then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back.
Deut 30:1-4

[1] In 930 BC the Northern Kingdom consisting of ten tribes split away.

[2] 2 Kings 17:23.  The Assyrian Exile was also a divine act.

“For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.”

[3] The most comprehensive study of this pre-Islamic Jewish presence is by, Joseph J. Williams, Hebrewisms of West Africa: From the Nile to Niger with the Jews. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1930. See also Windsor, Rudolph R. From Babylon To Timbuktu. First Revised ed. Philadelphia: Winsor’s Golden Series Publication, 1969.


A Prayer For Israelites Lost in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Rabbi Sholomo Ben Levy

Oh, merciful God who heard the cries of slaves, we beseech you now to hear the prayers of their decedents. Just as you stretch out Your mighty hand to deliver us from our first African captivity in Egypt, we implore you to remember the souls of the millions who were lost in all the places where Your people were held in cruel bondage.

The slave ships of the Middle Passage carried us across time as we moved between contents. Only You, our God is eternal and universal.  We are your people, stagnant in our spiritual progress. And because we have not truly understood the meaning of Your Torah, we repeat our mistakes and repeat our captivity in a loop that began in Egypt, followed us to ancient Israel,  scattered most us to oblivion in the Assyrian Exile (722 B.C), saw the surviving remnant carried away in the Babylonian Exile (586 B.C.). Only the names of our oppressors change. The Greeks persecuted us. The Romans destroyed our Holy Temple and sent survivors wandering aimlessly for centuries.  The Spanish Inquisitors tortured us and forced many to forsake their heritage. Our brothers sold us to European slave traders. Eventually and inevitably we once again found ourselves slaves to “a people neither we nor our forefathers had know.” Oh, Lord, as You said,  we “came to serve God of wood and stone” because we rejected the Creator and abandoned our covenant.  The slave ships of the Middle Passage carried your ignorant people across an ocean that could have made from the tears of Your lost and forgotten people. From the point of “No Return” in Ghana, we cried out to you “My God, my God, Why haste though forsaken me.” (Psalm 22:1) From the ports of Jamaica, Haiti, and Barbados, the blood of Your people grew the sugar cane that sweetened the lives of our oppressors. Our sweat made them rich and powerful. From the auction blocks of Virginia to the rice fields of South Carolina, we have been slaves to man because we refuse to freely serve God. Just as we made bricks for Pharoah, we picked cotton for master.  The crack of the whip echoes through our history.

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?” ( Psalm 137:1-4) On the banks of the Mississippi, we fell down and raised our hands to Thee while those who hung our bodies from poplar trees said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” With tears in our eyes we sung “Go Down Moses,” “Marching to Zion,” “Roll Jordan Roll” and “Wade in the Water.”

On this night of Passover, as we remember our first African enslavement in Egypt, let us also spill a drop of wine as we recount some of the other places where the blood of Your people were shed. Hallowed placed like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Buchenwald, which are remembered for the suffering that our people endured there during the Holocaust, stand in our memory along with the forgotten places where our Israelite ancestors where taken into captivity at Goree Island, Senegal; Bridgetown, Barbados; Kingston, Jamaica; and Jamestown, Virginia.

Our ancestors forgot the true meaning of Passover. They failed to heed the warning and dire prophecy contained in your Torah: “Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall take her: thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof. . . Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand. . . Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity. . . And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.” (Deuteronomy 28:30‐64) Thy word is true and just.  Thy prophecy of repeated enslavement has been visited upon us with terrible wrath. Our Israelite ancestors lost more than their lives–they lost their identities. Act now as you have promised. Gather your dispersed people from all the places where they were scattered. Bring us back to you in whole-hearted repentance. Restore your forgotten and exiled people. Give us back our names, language, land, culture, values, mission, and heritage as an everlasting covenant. Amen.

7 thoughts on “The Meaning of Tisha B’Av to Us: A Black Rabbi’s Perspective”

  1. The Israelite Board of Rabbis welcomes thoughtful comments and dialog about the articles that appear on our website. You may expressed you opinions here.

    1. Levi Ben Avraham

      I am a descendant of salves from the Rice plantation in Charleston SC. There are family members that are in the South Carolina historical records of the Hampton plantation for which this plantation is know for the cultivation and planting of Rice . Some family members to this day are being buried next to family members who have past on. If your family Name is Registered in the Historical records on that plantation you are allowed to be buried next to family members .

  2. ירדן יהודה בן ישראל

    These articles are important. As someone returning to our ancient practices and reconnecting with the Power of Israel, it’s so vital to see our perspective as West African Jews clearly articulated. It strengthens the relationship between our history, halakha, and heritage. Todah Rabba.

  3. Cynthia Bakerwoodard

    So encouraging, as year after year, we see increasing numbers of blacks, and African Americans in particular, hear and understand the Voice of Our GOD drawing us back into the understanding of who we are, and Whose we are. Only through our GOD could generationally horrible, sustained cruelty lead His People, B’nai Yisrael, to an awakening, by the thousands, to return to Him in Spirit and Truth and in Faith.

    Inter-continental, trans-generational captivity and bondage, ethnic and cultural genocidal strategies, and detestable artificial and forced genetic appropriations were created to develop and spread the deceptive and divisive construct of human “races”. All of these weapons of warfare cleverly designed to separate and cause self-destructive internal strife and alienation among GOD’s far-flung people, in addition to the global external campaigns to destroy this single “peculiar people” were successful for centuries. But only to allowed parameters.

    As the global campaigns intensified for the destruction of millions of Hebrews/Jews/ Israelites (even biblically identifying names became occasion for tribe separation) the descendants of Jacob were dispersed to all corners of the earth by various means and reasons: African nations, Arab nations, Asian nations, European nations, remote areas of the world. In all of these nations persecution, bondage, and rejection followed them. Even though individual Jews may have found some semblance of success, as a group this was not always the sustained case. No one group’s persecution or attempted genocide was more noteworthy than others. It has all been an attack on our Jewish family, the descendants of Jacob/ Israel.

    Today, the black and African American Jew is awakening to the truth of their lineage and heritage. It is no accident that this particular group within the Jewish Diaspora has produced a number of men and women who, though under fire from multiple corners, understand the Creator’s desire for all of B’nai to not continue to be deceived and separated by the divisive means of such tactics as ethnicity, national origin, skin color, or original diasporic geography.

    Could this be the beginning of GOD’s
    appointed time to start rattling, re-assembling, covering with muscle and flesh, sewing together with sinew, the bones of His People Israel?

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