Israel - Poll: Half of Israel's Jews Fear Another Tisha B'Av

Jews in Israel and around the world are observing the Fast of the Ninth of Av Sunday, the date on which the destruction of the two ancient Temples in Jerusalem took place and on which the other great calamities of Jewish history are also marked.

The day is designated as a fast to mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples, and the Jewish exile from the Land of Israel after the Bar Kokhba revolt against Roman rule in Judea was put down in 135CE.

In the shadow of the international agreement between Iran and leading world powers that was reached earlier this month on the Iranian nuclear program, a poll conducted for the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem by the TNS research group found that 42 percent of Israelis are concerned that the State of Israel may be destroyed and that the biggest perceived threat was an Iranian attack with a nuclear weapon.

The poll was conducted on a sample of 500 Hebrew speakers between the ages of 18 and 65.

Out of those surveyed, 41.5% of respondents said they were worried about the possible destruction of the state of Israel compared to 58.5 who said they were not concerned about such an eventuality.

When asked what is currently the greatest threat to the State of Israel, 27.8% of those polled said an Iranian nuclear attack, while 22.3% said internal discord within the Jewish people was the clearest danger to the state. Another 19.2% said corruption among decision-makers and the political class was the greatest threat, 14.8 percent said war with one of Israel’s neighboring countries, 10.9% said an international boycott of the State of Israel and 4.9% said none of the the above or were unsure.

Notably, some 43% of those defining themselves as religious said that the greatest threat was baseless hatred, meaning internal strife among the Jewish people, while 46% of haredi respondents said the same thing.

The rabbis of the Talmud stated that the Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred among the Jewish people at the time of the destruction in 70 CE, and this concept is frequently referenced by religious leaders during the three week period leading up to the Fast of Tisha B’Av as an admonition against repeating such mistakes in the modern State of Israel.

Some 24% of those defining themselves as religiously traditional said that internal baseless hatred was the biggest threat to Israel along with 12.3% of secular people.

The Iranian nuclear threat was the biggest concern for religiously traditional people, with 36.8% citing this danger as the most problematic, while the greatest danger perceived by secular people was corruption among political decision-makers, with 27.6% of secular respondents citing this concern as the gravest problem facing the country. 

The survey also found that almost one third of Israelis fast on Tisha B’Av, with 27.5% percent of respondents saying they fast for religious reasons and another 4.2% saying they fast for personal or societal reasons.  Another 3.9% fast partially and 64.3% of those surveyed said they do not fast at all.

Some 44% of respondents said correctly that Tisha B’Av marks the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, while just under 50% said it marked the destruction of one of the ancient Jewish temples.

Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post