News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Thursday the 17th day of Tammuz is a fast day observed from the break of dawn until night (as defined by Jewish law). It commemorates many calamities that have befallen the Jewish people on this very day, including:
Moses descended Mount Sinai on this day and broke the first set of Tablets carrying the Ten Commandments upon seeing the Golden Calf (Shemot 32:19, Mishna Taanit 28b).

In the First Temple Era: The daily sacrifice ceased to be offered on this day (Taanit 28b) due to the shortage of sheep during the siege by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces. The next year, 586 BCE, the walls of Jerusalem were breached.

In 1391 more than 4,000 Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain, and the Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted in 1559.

The Kovno ghetto was liquidated on this day in 1944, and in 1970 Libya ordered the confiscation of Jewish property.

The day also marks the beginning of the Three Weeks, an annual period of mourning over the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. It culminates in the Tisha B’Av fast on the 9th day of Av commemorating the Temple's destruction.