The Tisha B’Av Kinot and October 7
BY RABBI DR. JACOB J. SCHACTER
There is a long history of liturgical poems that were written to be recited on Tisha B’Av to commemorate tragic events that occurred during ancient and medieval times. For example, the Ashkenazi rite on Tisha B’Av includes kinot mourning for the “Ten Martyrs” killed in the second century; for the communities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz that were attacked during the First Crusades at the end of the eleventh century; and for the burning of two dozen wagon loads of sifrei kodesh in Paris in the middle of the thirteenth century.1 Liturgical poems were also written to remember the murder of more than thirty Jews in the French town of Blois towards the end of the twelfth century.2 Such liturgical works were also written in the wake of the Chmielnicki Massacres in Eastern Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century. They were not included in the Tisha B’Av rite because a separate fast day was established on which they would be recited, the twentieth of the month of Sivan.3
This practice continued during and after the Shoah when kinot were composed to mourn for the destruction of European Jewry. Already during the war, in the summer of 1944, a kinah was composed entitled, “If Only My Head Would be Water,” patterned after a kinah by that title recited on Tisha B’Av commemorating the destruction of Ashkenazi communities during the First Crusades.4 After the war, in 1945, Yehudah Leib Bialer composed a kinah entitled “Eli Eli,” one that achieved almost canonical status in the following years.5 In 1965, Rev. Abraham Rosenfeld printed a kinah he composed for the Holocaust.6
On Tisha B’Av 1971 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher told an acquaintance that it is impossible for him to mourn for the destruction of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz while paying no attention to the cries of the Jews murdered in Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka. “They do not speak to me after the horrific Shoah in Europe.” He also argued that composing and disseminating a kinah for the victims of the Holocaust, a destruction the likes of which has not occurred since the creation of the world, was particularly necessary since it was beginning to be forgotten even in the Jewish community. As precedents for his efforts, Rabbi Kasher noted that new fast days were established to commemorate a number of medieval Jewish tragedies (the Blois Massacre of 1171, the burning of wagon loads of Hebrew manuscripts in Paris in 1242, and the Chmielnicki Massacres of 1648–1649). Even if he considered such a more extreme step not to be appropriate in the case of the Holocaust, composing a new kinah to be recited on Tisha B’Av certainly would be. In the end, however, Rabbi Kasher abandoned his efforts when he realized that he was not getting the support he needed in the Chassidic and yeshiva communities that he felt was indispensable for his effort to be successful.7
But efforts continued. In the 1970s Rabbi Chaim Uri Lifschitz reached out to a number of Chassidic rebbes, and to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, stressing the importance of authoring an “official” kinah for the Holocaust that would be universally accepted.8 On January 19, 1976, Rabbi Lifschitz wrote Rabbi Feinstein that it is disingenuous to cry on Tisha B’Av for the destruction of Jewish communities during the Crusades, or for the burning of the Talmud in Paris, or for other tragedies while making no mention of the hundreds, and thousands, of Jewish communities destroyed in Europe.9 But all these efforts were for naught until the mid 1980s when efforts made by Mr. Pinchas Herzke from New York City finally bore fruit.10 The Tisha B’Av book of kinot first published by the Mesorah Heritage Foundation in 1991 included compositions for the Holocaust authored by Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, the Bobover Rebbe, and by Rabbi Shimon Schwab and in that way, the efforts of Mr. Herzke gained the imprimatur of respectability and acceptance.11 Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv recited the kinah authored by the Bobover Rebbe on Tisha B’Av12 and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach recited one authored by Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel.13 In fact, a number of kinot for the Holocaust were composed over the years, and recited in both the Religious Zionist and Charedi communities.14
Following this precedent, kinot continued to be written in the Religious Zionist community to commemorate events deemed tragic enough to warrant liturgical compositions. Then Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, wrote a kinah mourning the destruction of the Old City of Jerusalem on June 26, 1948 (19 Sivan 5708)15 and a kinah was also penned in the wake of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005.16
The war with Hamas that began on Simchat Torah 5784 has also inspired a number of kinot.17 HaMizrachi is honored to print here a new kinah authored by Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon commemorating this event that, regretfully, is still very much uppermost in our minds.
1 See Abraham Rosenfeld, The Authorised Kinot for the Ninth of Av (London, 1965), 125–28, 132–34, 161–62. That volume also includes a kinah for the Jews of York, England who were massacred at the end of the twelfth century. See pp. 168–72.
2 See Daniel Goldschmidt, Maḥzor le-Yamim ha-Nora’im, vol. 2 (Yom Kippur) (Jerusalem, 1970), 551–54; A. M. Haberman, ed., Sefer Zekhirah: Seliḥot ve-Kinot by R. Ephraim b. Yaakov (Jerusalem, 1970), 91–96.
3 I discuss these events and the texts written to commemorate them in my “Remembering the Temple: Commemoration and Catastrophe in Ashkenazi Culture,” in Steven Fine, ed., The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 277–95.
4 See Ha-Pardes 18:5 (1944):2; Yehudit Tydor Baumel, Kol Bikhyot: Ha-Shoah ve-ha-Tefillah (Ramat Gan, 1992), 58, 143. For the earlier kinah, see Abraham Rosenfeld, The Authorised Kinot for the Ninth of Av, pp. 132–34.
5 See Yehudah Leib Bialer, Ashdot Yamim: Shirim (Jerusalem, 1957), 45–48; Baumel, Kol Bikhyot, pp. 70, 151–52, 156–57. See too Dan Michman, “The Impact of the Holocaust on Religious Jewry,” in Yisrael Gutman, ed., Major Changes Within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Ninth Yad Vashem International Historical Conference (Jerusalem, 1996), 674–75.
6 See Rosenfeld, The Authorised Kinot for the Ninth of Av, pp. 173–75; Baumel, Kol Bikhyot, pp. 159–61.
7 R. Yisrael Rosen, “Kinot-Shoah be-Tisha B’Av,” Zohar 7 (2001), 153–64. I dealt with these medieval precedents in my “Remembering the Temple,” above, n. 3. Also relevant is my “Holocaust Commemoration and Tish’a be-Av: The Debate Over ‘Yom ha-Sho’a,’” Tradition 41:2 (2008), 164–97. For kinot written in response to other medieval tragedies, see the references cited in Hershkowitz (below n. 14), p. 337, n. 1.
8 See Baumel, Kol Bikhyot, p. 82
9 See Mordechai Meir, ‘Zekhor ha-Ne’akot ve-Ra‘ash ha-Ze‘akot’: Kinot le-Tisha B’Av le-Zekher ha-Shoah (Jerusalem, 2003), 10-11.
10 See the pamphlet entitled, “Kuntres Divrei Drishah ve-Hit’orerut le-Amirat Kinah be-Yom Tisha B’Av le-Zekher Kedoshei Yisrael she-Nishmedu be-Eiropah be-Shnot 5766-5705.” It was published in 1984 by the “Committee Advocating for the Recital of a Lamentation in Memory of the Martyrs of Europe (Vaad ha-Me’orerim le-Amirat Kinah le-Zekher Kedoshei Eiropah),” headed by Mr. Hertzke, and again in 1985. I have copies of these pamphlets in my possession.
11 See Avrohom Chaim Feuer and Avie Gold, eds., The Complete Tishah B’Av Service (New York, 1991), 384–89. See also Baumel, Kol Bikhyot, pp. 199–214.
12 See Peninei Is”h 3:129 (Devarim 1979).
13 See Halikhot Shlomoh al Mo‘adei Ha-Shanah: Nisan-Av (Jerusalem, 2007), 441, n. 36.
14 For more on the kinot composed to commemorate the Holocaust, see Meir, ‘Zekhor ha-Ne’akot ve-Ra‘ash ha-Ze‘akot’; R. Mordechai Hakohen, Pirkei Shoah (Jerusalem, 1950), 6–8 (a kinah by Y. L. Bialer); Seder Kinot le-Tisha B’Av: Mahadurat “Neḥamat Pinḥas” (Jerusalem, 2005), 54–55, 327–50; Esther Farbstein, “Sermons Speak History: Rabbinic Dilemmas in Internment Between Metz and Auschwitz,” Modern Judaism 27:2 (2007): 156–58 (a kinah by Rabbi Moshe Kahlenberg); idem., Hidden in the Heights (Jerusalem, 2014), 859–60; R. Menashe Hakatan (Klein), Sefer Pirsumei Nisa (Jerusalem, 2011), 257-63; Yiẓḥak Hershkowitz, “Me-‘Yad Hashem Nag’ah Bi’ ad ‘Ba-Avonot Histir Panim Mi-Sokhikhai’: Kinat ha-Shoah shel R. Shalom Moshe Halevi Ungar le-Mahadurotehah ha-Shonot,” in Ephraim Hazan and Avi Shmidman, eds., Devar Tikvah: Meḥkarim bi-Shirah u-be-Piyyut Mugashim le-Prof. Binyamin bar-Tikvah (Ramat-Gan, 1996), 337–65.
15 See this document in the “Archion ha-Rav Uziel,” no. 374.
16 This kinah written by Rabbi Yehoshua Buch is available at machonshilo.org/he/archive. See too Yonah Metzger, “Kevi‘at Ta‘anit ve-Kinot al Ḥurban ‘Gush Katif’,” Sefer Zikaron Iyunim be-Ta‘anit, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 2010), 928–42.
17 See Yair Tucker, “Yigal Ḥarush Mekonen: ‘Kinat Be’eri’,” available at kikar.co.il/singles-clips/s41v09 (November 13, 2023); Shoshanah Haberman, “Kinah le-Shelom ha-Medinah,” available at thelehrhaus.com (December 26, 2023).
Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University.