Religion: Tisha b’Ab Without Mats

As the sun went down on Jerusalem after the second day of August, and Tisha b’Ab, the Ninth of Ab (Great Fast Day), began,* Jews pious and Jews pugnacious walked warily toward the Wailing Wall. The Wall is a remnant of The Temple. Jews have wept, have recited the Lamentations of Jeremiah there for most of 1,800 years.

The place is also sacred to Moslems. Mohammed once tethered his horse Borak there.

Last year the Arabs made the Wall a prime factor in their war upon Zionism. As Jews went to their weeping places, rowdy Arab boys molested them. Riots ensued which spread throughout Palestine. About 100 Jews were killed, a few Arabs (TIME, Aug. 26, et seq.).

Last week Baron Edmond de Rothschild, head of the French Rothschilds (FORTUNE, Feb., 1930), sought to forestall repetition of such riots this Tisha b’Ab by offering to buy the Wall from the Moslem owners. Fifty years ago he made the same attempt. Moslems were willing. But pious Jews blocked the deal by clamoring that he would raze certain semi-sacred stone shacks near the Wall and replace them with a park. Last week the Moslems objected. The sacred Wall was too useful a political argument to relinquish.

This year stalwart Jerusalem Jews collected bludgeons, rocks and in a few cases firearms, to carry under their talithim (praying shawls) as they went at sundown to begin the Fast of Ab. Edward Keith-Roach, British district commissioner of Jerusalem, knew this was going on. He ordered admonishing posters prepared and had them fixed to walls. The work was done on Thursday so as not to offend Moslems by having Moslem employes work on Friday, their Sabbath, or by having Jews work on Saturday, their sabbath. His own sabbath, Sunday, was nerve-wracking for him. He was on tip-toe all that day, expecting outbreaks from almost any part of the city.

The posters forbade Jews to use candles at the Wailing Wall the eve of the Fast. It forbade them to use mats for squatting during the Lamentations. It forbade them to celebrate Kiddush levana, the blessing of the new moon.

Result: Tisha b’Ab passed peacefully if uncomfortably. A reader intoned Jeremiah’s lamentations by the light of a tiny flickering oil lamp. Jews squatted on the bare stones, straining to hear, but did not tarry long for the crowd was great and many were waiting to worship. The British constabulary called it the quietest as well as one of the biggest Tisha b’Abs on record.

*The end of a three weeks’ mourning period to commemorate both destructions of The Temple, by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B. C., by Titus in 70 A. D.