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It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte and his entourage, while passing a building in Paris, heard sounds of uncontrollable weeping. The Emperor dispatched an aide to enquire what horrific misfortune had transpired. He reported that this was a Synagogue. The congregation was mourning the destruction of their Temple. When Napoleon asked how it could be that he wasn鈥檛 aware of this event, the aide sheepishly explained that the tragedy had taken place in Jerusalem over 1,700 years before.

That day was the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls today; a fast day, on which we mourn not one, but two occasions on which Jerusalem was conquered and its Temple destroyed, by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Romans in the year 70.

It may seem strange that events long consigned to history can continue to provoke deep sadness. But that鈥檚 only until one learns just how fundamental Jerusalem is to Jewish faith and peoplehood. Indeed, Judaism, rooted in the Kingdom of Judea, was initially centred entirely around Zion, as Jerusalem is called in the Bible.

The 9th of Av marks countless tragedies suffered by Jews throughout our history, such as expulsion from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492, the Khmelnytsky uprising of 1648 and the Holocaust. This year, the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th are added to this ignominious catalogue.

These contemporary atrocities find their parallel in the heartbreaking ancient verses of the Book of Lamentations which we read today in Synagogue: 鈥淭hey have abused women in Zion and girls in the cities of Judah鈥�. The young children of Zion dragged into captivity before the enemy.鈥�

The horrors perpetrated by Hamas and compounded by Hezbollah, together with the nightmare experienced by innocent Palestinian civilians, are what has made the last ten months so deeply painful. And there is another layer of pain, which is as hard for some to understand today, as it was for Napoleon.

It is the manner in which conflict in the Holy Land affects Jews around the world so profoundly. It鈥檚 not just that family and friends live there. It鈥檚 that this land has been the bedrock of Jewish faith and identity for thousands of years. That鈥檚 why so many of us feel so invested in Israel鈥檚 future as the historic homeland of the Jewish People and her ability to achieve peace with her neighbours.

The words of the Psalmist are so apposite: 鈥淧ray for the peace of Jerusalem鈥� may there be peace in your walls and tranquillity in your places.鈥�

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