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I can't even wrap my head around what the real victims are living. This world is a grotesque joke right now.

Last week we observed Tisha B'Av which is a day of mourning and fasting for Jews to reflect on loss, exile, repentance, and our hope for redemption. What Israel is doing to Gaza isn't just a catastrophe for Palestinians. It's also a catastrophe for us and anyone else complicit in this.

What's the use of mourning things that happened to us centuries ago if we turn around and inflict similar horrors on the Palestinians? It all seemed so hypocritical and grotesque.

So I mourned for Gaza. For today's crimes instead of focusing on the past to avoid an examination of conscience for the sins of today. This Tisha B'Av for me and my siblings was mostly anger. How does this poem lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple not apply to Gaza today?

How dare a mass murderer like Ben Gvir trample on the Torah to go lead prayer at the Temple Mount on this sacred day? I have no clue what Judaism these he and his ilk claim to follow. Whatever it is, it's something more political than religious. I felt only anger this Tisha B'Av. Not. In. Our. Name!

Eli Tzion ve-Areha

Mourn Zion and her cities, like a woman in her birth pains,
And like a maiden wrapped in sack-cloth for the husband of her youth.

Mourn the palace that was abandoned in the sheep’s negligence of its flock,
and for the coming of the revulsion of God within the Temple’s rooms.
For the exile of the servants of God, who sing her songs,
and for their blood that was spilled like the waters of her rivers.

For the chatter of her dancers which was silenced in her cities,
and for the gathering that destroyed and canceled her Sanhedrin.
For the periodic sacrifices and redemption of her firstborns,
and for the desecration of the vessels of Temple and the altar of her incense.

For the children of her kings, sons of David her hero,
and for their beauty that was darkened at the time of the removal of her crowns.
For the glory that was bared at the destruction of her holiest places,
and for the pressure that was caused and placed sack-cloths around her bodies.

For the striking and many blows by which her ascetics were struck,
and for the clubbing on the rock of her young children.
For the joy of her haters in their laughter on her breaking,
And for the affliction of her freemen and her pure princes.

For the sins that she committed, making the ways of the wealthy lewd,
And for the hosts of her congregations, her blackened and tarnished ones.
For the voices of her scorners at the time of her increasing dead bodies,
And for the noise of her cursers within the sanctuary of her courtyards.

For Your name which was desecrated in the mouths of those who stood up against her distressed ones,
and for the supplication they will cry out to you, give attention and hear her speech.