Kinnot (Hebrew: קינות; also kinnos, kinoth, qinot, qinoth; singular kinah, qinah or kinnah) are Hebrew dirges (sad poems) or elegies. The term is used to refer both to dirges in the Hebrew Bible, and also to later poems which are traditionally recited by Jews on Tisha B'Av.
See also: Kinah. In the Hebrew Bible, the term kinah or qinah refers to a dirge or lament, especially as sung by Jewish professional mourning women.
The Jerusalem Bible refers to Isaiah 47 as a qinah or "lament for Babylon",[1] and to Ezekiel 19 as a qinah or lamentation over the rulers of Israel.[2] A. W. Streane suggests that 2 Jeremiah, on the prophesied downfall of Jerusalem, is written "in Ḳinah metre".[3]
On Tisha B'Av, Jews traditionally recite a series of elegiac poems, known as kinnot, after the evening and morning prayers. These poems mourn the destruction of both the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem and other tragedies in Jewish history, including the Crusades, the Expulsion of Jews from Spain and the Holocaust. The kinnot are recited on the night of Tisha B'Av after reciting the Book of Lamentations, which was also called Kinnot in the Talmudic era[4] before it assumed its more familiar name Hebrew: אֵיכָה ʾĒkhāh.
Many kinnot were composed by Rabbi Elazar Hakalir,[5] who likely lived in the 6th-7th centuries. His kinnot resemble the structure and content of the Book of Lamentations. For example, one of his kinnot begins each stanza with the word ʾĒkhāh, the opening word of Lamentations. He often writes stanzas in an alphabetical acrostic, similar to the first four chapters of Lamentations. The style deals primarily with the destruction of the Second Temple, similar to Lamentations which mourns the destruction of the First Temple.
The main impetus for creation of new kinnot during the Middle Ages was the Crusades, in which Christian mobs decimated many Jewish communities. The kinnot deal with the then-current tragedy of the Crusades, no longer focusing on the destruction of the Temple in the past. The loss of the Torah and its scholars, instead of the loss of the Temple, occupies a central theme.
Rabbi Judah Halevi wrote a kinnah of a different nature of the kinnot. In his poem Tziyon Halo Tishali, rather than expressing pain and despair over the tragedies of the distant or near past, he expresses a longing for returning to Jerusalem. Many later poets copied him.
The various Sephardic communities of North Africa and the Middle East have a rich tradition of kinnot. The following is an extensive list based on the practices of North Africa (Morocco and Tunisia). See also the Hebrew wikipedia page קינות לתשעה באב
Al Naharot Bavel (על נהרות בבל) is read from Tehillim
Then the evening Arvit service is said. The kinnot continue after the Amidah:
Megillat Eykhah/Lamentations (מגילת איכה) is then read, followed by:
The years since the destruction of the Temple are then counted (מניין שנות החורבן).
Some communities recite the following kinnah:
See קינות תשעה באב (Hebrew)
Although the fast of Tisha B'Av was founded to mourn the destruction of the Temple, over the years other travails of the Jewish Diaspora have been added to its observance and memorialized in the kinnot. Despite this, few kinnot have been composed in the last several centuries, and none of them had entered the standard kinnot service.
After the Holocaust, many people felt that it was inappropriate to mourn on Tisha b'Av for the destruction of cities during the Middle Ages without mourning the even greater tragedy of the Holocaust. For this reason, many people recommended the composition and recitation of new kinnot to commemorate the Holocaust. These people, including many important rabbis, argued that in every generation, kinnot were composed to address the difficulties of that generation. Some added that it was essential to incorporate such kinnot into the Jewish liturgy, lest the Holocaust be forgotten by future generations. One popular Kinnah on the Holocaust is Eli Eli Nafshi Bekhi, composed by Yehuda Leib Bialer.
However, many other rabbis dissented on the grounds that they could not create new kinnot because the existing kinnot were holy and were composed by the greatest individuals of their respective generations, but today there is nobody who can write like them. Others claimed that any individual community could recite new Kinnot as they wished, but only the greatest rabbis would have the authority to institute new Kinnot into the communal service in the entire Jewish world community.
Rabbi Yaakov Ariel claims that the kinnot service, unlike the Siddur and other Jewish rituals, was not created by authority of the rabbis, but rather developed based on the acceptance of communities and the decisions of the printers who produced printed copies. Thus the new kinnot could gradually enter the accepted roster of kinnot. However, since many congregations now recite kinnot to commemorate the Holocaust, this may become an integral part of the service without a formal decision.