Tisha B'Av

• A season of mourning. Tisha B'Av ends a three week period of mourning. Spanish and Portuguese synagogues use a more somber melody for the prophetic readings of those weeks.
• The fast. Adults refrain from eating and drinking, washing, wearing leather shoes, and other comforts.
• Lamentations and kinot. In the evening, the congregation reads Eikhah, the Book of Lamentations, and chants kinot, poems of grief. Spanish and Portuguese Jews have their own melody for Lamentations, and Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman world read it with a Ladino translation.
• The Book of Job. Many Sephardic congregations also read from Job, the biblical book about suffering and faith, on the morning of Tisha B'Av.
• Sitting low. Like mourners, people sit on the floor or on low seats. In some Spanish and Portuguese synagogues, a black curtain covers the ark.

1492 and the 9th of Av: what the calendar shows

On 31 March 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella signed the decree expelling the Jews of Spain. It gave them until the end of July to convert to Christianity or leave. By careful reckoning, the 31 July deadline fell on the 7th of Av, and the last Jews are remembered as departing on 2 August, which was Tisha B'Av itself.

Many sources simply say the deadline “fell on Tisha B'Av,” and some describe a short extension. Either way, the expulsion came within days of the fast. Don Isaac Abravanel, a leader of the exiles, saw the timing as meaningful, and Sephardic memory has joined the two ever since.

The First Temple, 587 or 586 BCE

Babylonian armies besieged Jerusalem and burned the Temple built by King Solomon. Many Judeans were taken into exile in Babylonia.

The Second Temple, 70 CE

Roman forces destroyed the rebuilt Temple at the end of the Great Revolt. Some rabbinic chronologies give the year as 68. In 135 CE, the fortress of Betar fell, ending the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Spain, 1492

After the decree, those who remained Jewish left. Scholars disagree on the numbers, with estimates from about 40,000 to 100,000. Many went to Portugal, where forced baptisms followed a few years later. Others reached North Africa, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire, whose sultan Bayezid II welcomed refugees to cities such as Thessaloniki and Izmir.

Rhodes, 1944

On 23 July 1944, about 1,800 Jews of Rhodes and nearby Kos were forced onto boats and sent to Auschwitz. Only about 150 Jews of Rhodes survived. Their last Tisha B'Av was spent on cargo boats bound for a camp near Athens. Rhodesli families in Seattle remember them on this day.

Salonica (Thessaloniki)

Bouena Sarfatty, a Sephardic woman from Salonica, recalled in verse that on Tisha B'Av “we sit on the floor and fast,” and that her mother wore black.

Rhodes and Seattle

Ladino sayings show how deeply the day was felt. A person who wept constantly was “the prophet Jeremiah.” Something that dragged on was “like the haftarah of Tisha B'Av,” a joke about its long Ladino translation. Rebecca Amato Levy recorded these in her memoir I Remember Rhodes.

The Ottoman Sephardic prayer book

Sephardic Jews used Seder Arba Ta'aniot, the “Order of the Four Fasts,” mixing Hebrew with Ladino. Seattle's University of Washington holds 1871 and 1921 editions printed in Vienna for Ottoman Jewish readers, donated by the family of Haham David Behar of Congregation Ezra Bessaroth.

Seattle today

In 2012, Isaac Azose of Seattle published Tefilah Le‑Moshe, a book for the fast days with the Ladino written in Latin letters, making it easier for new generations to read.

Spanish and Portuguese Jews (London, Amsterdam, New York)

These communities, founded by descendants of Jews who left Spain and Portugal, traditionally place a black curtain over the ark on Tisha B'Av. They have their own chant for Lamentations and a special melody for the morning's prophetic reading. In England, biblical passages in the Tisha B'Av prayer book were long read in Spanish translation.

Morocco and Tunisia

North African communities have a rich tradition of kinot, with poems such as Nishmat Shedudim and Yonah Nikh'avah. Later kinot, in many communities, mourn more recent tragedies, including the expulsion from Spain.

Iran

Iranian Jews are reported to call the fast Noi, and its eve Shab e Noi.

A poet of medieval Spain

Yehuda HaLevi, a great Hebrew poet of medieval Spain, wrote “Tziyon Halo Tishali” (“Zion, will you not ask”). It is a kinah of longing for Jerusalem, and many later poets imitated it.

In the public school classroom

• Never ask students to fast or take part in mourning practices. Teach about the day instead.
• Study the 1492 decree as a primary source, and map where the exiles went, including Muslim lands that welcomed them.
• Use the dating question as a lesson in historical method: compare sources, then check the Hebrew and Julian calendars.
• Teach the Rhodes deportation within Holocaust units in an age appropriate way.
• Read Lamentations or Yehuda HaLevi in English as poetry of loss and longing.

In Jewish schools and communities

• Compare the Ladino and Hebrew of a passage from Lamentations using the University of Washington's digital collection.
• Explore the Ladino sayings about Jeremiah and the haftarah, and collect sayings from your own families.
• Invite a Rhodesli or Moroccan family to share how they kept the day.
• Learn why the expulsion is remembered on Tisha B'Av, and discuss how memory and history can differ.

At home and with family

• Ask relatives: Did your family keep Tisha B'Av? Which places and people did they remember?
• Look at a map of the Sephardic world after 1492 and trace your family's journeys.
• Read Yehuda HaLevi's “Zion, will you not ask” together in translation.
• Record an elder's memories for JIMENA's oral history project.