There was a noticeably quieter atmosphere along the length of Tel Aviv’s
Rothschild Boulevard on Monday evening, as Tisha Be’av came in after
sunset.
Trance parties and impromptu jazz parties were replaced
by a series of lectures and a number of campsites where readings of the
Book of Lamentations were held. At busier spots throughout the
boulevard, such as the Student Union headquarters and the main kitchen
at the corner of Rothschild and Marmorek, signs were posted calling on
people to respect the fast, and notifying passersby that there would be
no music parties, performances or entertainment scheduled for the night,
and called on all residents to “please participate in showing respect
for this day.”
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at the kitchen on Monday, food service closed early, though cakes and
cookies were still available into the night for those who weren’t
fasting.
At the boulevard studio of the nascent online radio
station “TheVoice.fm”, founded by the protest movement, two of the
station’s workers said they would be having no music during their
nightly broadcast on the Ninth of Av.
On Sunday, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel sent a letter to Mayor
Ron Huldai asking that he ensure that no “festivals” take place on the
Ninth of Av at the Rothschild tent city, though it appeared that like
most aspects of the protest movement, showing respect for the holiday
was a grassroots initiative not ordered by anything resembling a
leadership.
A few meters away, at a public relations booth for the protest movement,
Ori Ben- Dov, 29, said he saw great importance in the commemoration of
Tisha Be’av at the Tel Aviv protest camp, even though the majority of
campers are secular.
“There’s no better place to study about Tisha Be’av or the Book of
Lamentations than here. We lost the First and Second Temples because of a
lack of solidarity. We don’t want to lose the Third Temple because of a
lack of solidarity,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if most people here are secular or not. The holiday
is for all of us, not just the religious. Besides, even if there was
only one religious person here, we wouldn’t want them to feel
uncomfortable.”
A tent complex on Rothschild set up weeks earlier by a group of Breslov
Hassidim was mostly cleared out on Monday evening, and Yaakov, a
Breslover laying on a couch said he believed most of them were in
synagogue.
Yaakov also said he feels the holiday resonates stronger at the
Rothschild tent city because “we lost the First and Second Temples
because of
sinat hinam [baseless hatred], because everyone was only
worrying about themselves.
And that is what has happened in the country here, because of the
government and the way it has made everyone only about themselves. Here
[on Rothschild] people are all starting to talk to one another, and it’s
ahavat hinam [baseless love]. We’re building the Third Temple here.”