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The 1929 Tisha B'Av March

(Nadia Matar spoke in Hebrew outside the Lion's Gate during the Tisha B'Av Walk this year in which tens of thousands participated. At a brief ceremony which recalled the recapture of the Temple Mount and the Old City during the miraculous Six Day War, she delivered the following address to a massive audience. A translation of her speech into English follows.)

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 Zeev 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 Zevi 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 yeshivah 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!", "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 ha-Nevi'im 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 two thousand 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. Despite Ben-Gurion's fine declarations about freedom of worship for all the religions, it is especially applicable to the Jews in Israel that 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 State 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," 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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