(JTA) — In his historical account of the Roman siege of Jerusalem, Josephus describes how the Jews slowly succumbed to starvation. At the beginning of the siege, the Jewish faction known as the Zealots burned the grain reserves that had been stored...

This story originally appeared on My Jewish Learning. (JTA) — Next Thursday is Tisha B’Av, the day on which Jews traditionally commemorate the destruction of the two ancient Temples with fasting and other modes of self-denial. The goal of these...

Yael was a recent college graduate looking for her first teaching job in Israel. She finally found a position she thought she would enjoy, teaching beginner Hebrew skills to new Israeli immigrants in an ulpan. Nervous but confident in her creative classroom...

Ultra Orthodox Jewish men pray as they gather for the ritual of Tisha B'Av at the Meah Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, August 13, 2016. The Tisha B'Av ceremony, literally the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebraic calendar, is the darkest day...

(JTA) — For many observant Jews, the mourning over the destruction of the two ancient Temples in Jerusalem on the fast of Tisha B’Av actually begins three weeks earlier with the onset of a period of mourning during which it’s customary to avoid...