As the Jewish world is counting the days to the ninth of Av (Tisha Be'Av), the date on which Jews mourn the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem following its destruction by the Romans, foxes have been spotted walking near the Western Wall, a press release reported on Thursday.
It is written in the Book of Lamentations (5:18), which is read on Tisha Be'Av, that Mount Zion – where the Temples stood – will be so desolate that “foxes will walk upon it.” The understanding, according to the Talmud in the tractate Makkot (24b), is that if the prophecies of destruction have been fulfilled, so will be the ones by the prophet Zechariah about the Temple being rebuilt.
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, referred to photos of the foxes and commented, “One cannot refrain from crying at the site of the fulfillment of the prophecy of 'foxes will walk on it.'”