"Be gracious to us Hashem, be gracious, for we have long been sated with contempt. Long have our souls been sated with the mockery of the smug, the contempt of the arrogant" (Tehillim 123: 3-4).
Rashi explains that the last word "of the arrogant" is written as one word "legayonim" but is read as two words "legei yonim" (to the valley of the doves) which refers to Yerushaliyim.
So, we read it, "Long have our souls been sated with the mockery of the smug, the contempt to the valley of the doves [Yerushaliyim]."
The Sefer Yalkut Margaliyiot writes that the Jewish people are compared to Yona (dove) HaNavi. When Yona was running away from the mission that Hashem placed upon him, he rented the entire fee of a ship to flee to Tarshish. Throughout the journey, Yona stayed alone in the bottom of the hold. When the sea began to storm, the sailors did not know who was the spiritual cause of their seemingly inevitable demise. So, they drew lots, and the lot fell on Yona.
Wherever we went throughout our exile, even at first, when we might have been treated well, eventually, things turned against us. Taxes were placed upon us. Sources of income were cut off from us. We were forced to live in ghettos. Our history is just a cycle of such behaviour. And when things became hard on our host countries … they "drew lots" and suddenly remembered the Jewish people, the "dove" sitting alone in the bottom of the ship. Obviously! They were the ones responsible for all their problems! So they take that dove and throw it overboard into the stormy sea.
Yet, despite everything, that dove, through miraculous means, finds a way to live and continue.
Three years ago, antisemitism in the United States began on the far left and shifted into the mainstream left. Not long after, it came from the far right and now is becoming more comfortable in the mainstream right. Just the other day, the vice president of the United States gave credibility to conspiracies that show clearly that the Israelis (read: Jews) are controlling everything. Somehow, despite that fact we constitute 0.2 percent of the world's population, the Jewish people, according to the second most powerful leader in the United States, are busy running intelligent operations that can control practically everything!
This is the first time that it has been acceptable to actually question whether or not a country and its population have a right to exist! And that country isn't Iran, Syria, North Korea, China, or Russia. Rather it's the only Jewish country in the world, which is a living and breathing democracy, whose population only wants to live in peace with everybody.
This year, more than any other that I recall, Tisha B'Av seems to be more real. The Church of England has officially shifted its stance to an openly antisemitic position. Powerful politicians in the United States have openly supported antisemitic conspiracies and have openly supported cutting off even defensive aid to Israel. Two or three years ago this was limited to universities. Now it's openly found in the halls of the most powerful nations in the world.
The open shift in world opinion over the past three years shows that what is happening is not simply some "bump in the road." We have seen a constant move, without interruption, toward a new policy regarding the Jews.
Nobody could sit this Tisha B'Av without thinking to themselves, "Who knows what may come over the next year?"