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Beloved in Messiah:

Today (from sundown Wednesday to sundown Thursday) is the annual
observance of Tisha B’Av, a time of disaster in Jewish history. It
commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalemin 70 AD, as well
as other events.

Officials reported at 2 PM today that over 100,000 persons had visited
the Western Wall since Wednesday night, and that many more were
expected. Among the many tourists, yeshiva students, and visitors from
around the country were single mothers who have been protesting the
recent Finance Ministry economic austerity measures. Large security
forces have been present in and around the Old City since Wednesday
afternoon to ensure public safety.

Many thousands of people took part in the annual Tisha B'Av march around
the Old City walls last night. The marchers took a break outside Lion’s
Gate, on the eastern wall of the Old City, and heard speeches from
Tourism Minister Benny Elon, Rabbi Sholom Gold, former Deputy Education
Minister Moshe Peled - and Women in Green co-chairperson Nadia Matar,
whose organization sponsored the walk. We reprint excerpts of her
remarks below.

Regards,
Charles E. Quigley
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ARUTZ-7 GUEST OP-ED:
THE 1929 TISHA B'AV MARCH
A speech delivered in Hebrew by Nadia Matar, Co-Founder of Women
in Green, at the Tisha B'Av Jerusalem March Wednesday night.
(Translation provided by Women in Green.)

ON TISHA B'AV (the Ninth of Av) of the year 1929, exactly 74 years ago,
the first mass march to the Western Wall was held. Actually, this was
one of the first Jewish demonstrations against the British occupation.
All this is described in his book by Ze'ev Golan, entitled "Free Jerusalem".
A week before Tisha B'Av, the British (who ruled Eretz Israel at the
time) enacted anti-Jewish decrees that severely restricted the
conditions of Jewish prayer at the Western Wall. It was an attempt by
them to completely stop Jewish entry to the site.

A group of Jews, led by Rabbi Moshe Segal, decided that they could not
remain silent, and that the most suitable response to the new British
decrees would be a march by the masses, on Tisha B'Av, to the Western
Wall. The person leading the march would engage in a provocative act: he
would bear a Jewish national flag (that would later become the flag of
the State of Israel), raised high. Uri Zvi Greenberg was enlisted for
this cause. He wrote and printed in Tel Aviv the appeal calling upon the
public to participate in the march, an appeal that became the first
poster of the Zionist revolution.

Thousands of Jews answered the call and came to the march. These were
Jews of all persuasions: men and women, religious and non-religious,
members of Betar and Maccabi, together with members of the socialist
movements such as Ahdut ha-Avodah and members of the Histadrut. Many
yeshiva students also came. All of them joined together in order to
fight for Jewish rights at the Western Wall.

The British police sent reinforcements to the starting point of the
march, and they tried to persuade the organizers not to hold the
procession, but instead hold a quiet demonstration where they were, "in
the spirit of Tisha B'Av" - without provocative Jewish flags and songs.
The representatives of the official Jewish leadership - the "lackeys" of
the British - also arrived there, to instruct the Jews not to hold the
provocative march, but the public totally ignored them.

The flag arrived from a coffee shop on Yelin Street. Segal and his
comrades raised the flag high and began to march in the direction of
Jaffa Road, shouting out: "The Western Wall is ours!" and "Long live the
Jewish state!" The British police attempted to stop them, but they were
too few and the many marchers pushed them aside. Again and again the
British sought to form a human chain to stop the Jews, but again and
again the Jews kept pushing them out of the way as they advanced.
They reached HaNevi'im [Prophets] Street, and continued through Damascus
Gate into the Old City. The British deputy commander of the Jerusalem
district, Commander Kingsley Heath, himself jumped on the Jew holding
the flag in order to pull it down, but all he received were blows by the
Jews who pushed him aside, as well.

When the thousands of marchers reached the Western Wall, they conducted
a ceremony in which they took an oath of loyalty to the Temple Mount,
and sang HaTikvah. At long last, after [1,861 years] of exile, Jews once
again sang songs of Jewish freedom at the Western Wall, at the foot of
the Temple Mount. At the conclusion of the march, when the marchers
returned to the city center, they raised Rabbi Moshe Segal on their
shoulders. When he saw the British officers, Segal proudly called out to
them: "We shall expel you from our land! We shall establish here a free
Jewish state!"

THE DREAM was fulfilled, and in 1948 the State of Israel was
established. This is what Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said in an
announcement regarding Jerusalem and the holy places:
"Israel would honor all existing rights regarding the holy
places [...] assure freedom of worship and free access without
discrimination to all the religions and all the holy places.
At the same time, we see fit to state that Jewish Jerusalem is
an organic, inseparable part of the State of Israel, just as
it is an integral part of Jewish history and belief, and of
the soul of our people. Jerusalem is the heart of the State
of Israel."

And now we stand, on Tisha B'Av 5763 (2003), at a mass march around the
walls. Tens of thousands of Jews - men and women, religious and
nonreligious, new immigrants and sabras. The British conqueror was
officially expelled, and there is a Jewish government in Jerusalem - but
if all those who had participated in the march then, in 1929, were
marching with us today, they simply would not believe what is happening!

Not much has changed. Now, too, Jews in Eretz Israel suffer from
discrimination, this time from a Jewish, so-called national, government.
The truth, however, is that this is a puppet government, that follows
dictates, this time not by the British, but by the Americans.
Ben-Gurion's fine declarations about freedom of worship for all the
religions are especially applicable to the Jews in Israel who do not
enjoy freedom of worship. Jews cannot pray, not at Joseph's Tomb, not in
the Shalom al Yisrael (Peace on Israel) synagogue in Jericho, and
obviously, and worst of all, Jews cannot even ascend the Temple Mount,
the heart of our holiness, that is under Arab occupation.

And just as then, in 1929, today too, the Jews are persecuted by those
same Arab enemies, who, like the Nazis, may their name be blotted out,
do not tolerate any Jewish presence or Jewish life - and it is not
important what are our borders. Today, as well, Jews are murdered and
slaughtered in pogroms and terror attacks by Nazi Arabs. Rabbi Moshe
Segal and his fellows would not believe that a Jewish government, for
which they fought so vigorously and so hoped would arise, not only does
not fight against those Arab murderers, it rewards them. Instead of
struggling for the return home of the POWs and the missing soldiers and
for the release of our brother Jonathan Pollard, the government of
Israel is releasing those Arabs who murdered Jews, and promises to them
and their leaders to give over extensive parts of our homeland in Judea,
Samaria, and the Gaza District, so that they will be able to establish a
death-state, a state whose entire raison d'etre is the destruction of
the S tate of Israel and the destruction of the Jews.

It is said that the Temple was destroyed because of ‘sinat chinam’
(baseless hatred). The banner of the current government is the "Road
Map" [Peace Plan] that consists entirely of incitement to murder Jews
and baseless hatred. How else could we understand the willingness of the
government to uproot Jews from their homes and deport them, as the worst
of the anti-Semites did? How can this be understood, other than as
baseless hatred?

And so, in my opinion, this is the most difficult Tisha B'Av for the
Jewish people. In the past, whether this was under the British
occupation or under the regime of the Oslo criminals, at least there was
always hope that a national government would arise, that would, at last,
fight for the interests of the Jewish people. And now, a seemingly
national government, led by a former national hero, also capitulates to
the dictates of our internal and external enemies.

But it is specifically the march by Rabbi Moshe Segal that must give us
hope and direction. A small band of Jews succeeded in mobilizing the
Jewish people, and in arousing it to march against the British
conqueror, and contrary to the demands of the official Jewish
leadership. This is the message that Rabbi Moshe Segal gave us,
specifically on Tisha B'Av. The man in the street has the power to stop
destruction, especially when it is the Jewish leadership that is leading
us to destruction, Heaven forbid.

Anyone who wants to deal with sheep can do so on his private farm. But
we, the people, we shall not walk like sheep to the plans that endanger
the lives of our children and our grandchildren, and the existence of
the Jewish state as a whole.

Today's march is one of unity and loyalty. Like a bride who encircles
her bridegroom, we have come in our masses, around the Temple Mount, to
swear an oath of loyalty to the Torah of Israel, the people of Israel,
and all the Land of Israel, whose heart is the Temple Mount. And just as
Rabbi Segal called to the British, we issue a call to the present Arab
invaders: Do not be mistaken! Although the majority of our political
leadership is weak, the People of Israel is strong! We shall never
capitulate to you! To the contrary - we shall reinstall Jewish
sovereignty over the Temple Mount and remove you from the place of our
Temple, and from every place in Eretz Israel where you endanger Jews!
Long live the Jewish state! Long live the people of Israel! Long live
the Torah of Israel! Long live the Land of Israel!

May it be His will that we shall merit the advent of our righteous
Messiah and the rebuilding of the Third Temple, speedily in our days, Amen!

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