​ Peace, Persecution, or Something In Between

Yerushalmi Ta'anit 4:8
For what reason did they not establish it [i.e,. the 17th of Tammuz] as a fast? Hinena the father of Bar Yente said in the name of Rabbi Benaya: Because the majority of the public did not accept it upon themselves.

Otzar Hageonim, Rosh Hashanah, Hateshuvot, p. 32
In our age, in these generations, when there is neither persecution nor peace, if they wished, they fast, if they did not wish, they do not fast… Therefore, [on these] three fasts, if there is one who does not wish to fast, it is nothing, and he is not obligated therein. But on Tisha B’av, since [troubles] were multiplied therein, he is required to fast and to afflict himself, and to behave therein as he does on Yom Kippur, for our Sages said (Pesahim 54b): “Rava expounded: Pregnant women and nursing women fast and complete their fast on [Tisha B’av], just as they fast and complete their fast on Yom Kippur…”

David Golinkin, Should We Continue to Fast on Tisha B'av and Other Fasts which Commemorate the Temple's Destruction?
IV) Conclusions
1) From the historical perspective, we have demonstrated that Tisha B’av was observed even during the days of the Second Temple. If this was so when the Temple was standing, when on the face of it there was no reason to fast, how much more so ought we to fast today.
2) Some rabbis have suggested that we break our fast on Tisha B’av after Minhah (see Rabbi Friedman). From the halakhic standpoint, this is not an option. As we have seen, one needs to fast on all four fasts, or on Tisha B’av alone, or to abolish all of these fast days and turn them into occasions of “joy and gladness”. True, there is a tendency to view the hour of Minhah on Tisha B’avas a time of comfort. This approach influenced customs relating to prayer, tefillin, and tallit (see Rabbi Friedman, par. 6 and Zimmer). However, there is not a single halakhic authority who permits eating after Minhah, as even nursing mothers and pregnant women are required to complete their fast (Pesahim 54b, Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 554:5, and the Rema, ibid., 550:1). (The only one to mention such a custom is Rabbi Menahem Hameiri, in Bet Habehirah to Ta’anit, p. 109: “Women were accustomed during the days of the geonim and the rabbis to shampoo their hair [on Tisha B’av] from Minhah onwards, and the Sages did not protest; moreover, they were given a meal to eat, because it is a time of comfort… and this thing is not fitting.” In other words, there was such a custom among the women of thirteenth-century Provence, but the Meiri opposed it. Morever, Ya’akov Gartner has shown (Sinai 89 [5741], pp. 157-164) that this rare custom, as well as many other customs relating to Minhah as a “time of consolation,” derived specifically from the influence of the Karaite Mourners of Zion in Jerusalem, and have no Talmudic or halakhic basis).
3) From an ideological perspective, one cannot say that we have reached the age of “peace”, since there is no Temple, “the hand of the of the gentiles is still strong against Israel” and, above all, there is not yet true peace in the Land of Israel.
4) What should we do? We should fast all day on Tisha B’av, while ruling that the other three fasts are optional. This is the approach of Rav Pappa in Rosh Hashanah 18b as codified by the Geonim and Rishonim (above, Section II, 5) who ruled according to the simple meaning of the Talmudic passage. By so doing, we acknowledge the miracles of the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948 and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 by downplaying the three fast days, while indicating that we are still far from peace by fasting on Tisha B’av.
It is worth noting that this was the conclusion of the Halakhah Committee of Hatenuah L’yahadut Shel Torah (The Movement for a Judaism of Torah), a group of modern-Orthodox academics which arose after the Six-Day War. This committee, led by Rabbi A. S. Rosenthal, a well-known rabbi and Talmud scholar, ruled that “there is no requirement to observe the three fast days” but “we do not have permission to take the lead” since we are a small group. He said: We must appeal, interpret, write and say that the Chief Rabbinate should abolish these public fasts. Some of their group continued to observe the three fasts while others did not. (A.S. Rosenthal, pp. 23-24 and cf. Herr; Lau; Lau and Golinkin).
It is also interesting to note that Dr. Dov Rappel, a well-known modern-Orthodox scholar in Israel and a member of Kibbutz Yavneh, published a brief article in 1996 in which he stated that he and the majority of “our public” has not fasted on the 17^th of Tammuz since the Six Day War. He suggested that in order to remember the historical significance of this fast day, the Selihot for the 17^th of Tammuz should be read at Shaharit and only a modest lunch should be served on that day (see Rappel).
5) Finally, it is worth noting what three Jewish leaders had to say about the importance of Tisha B’av:
Maimonides (Hilkhot Ta’anit 5:1) said that we fast on these four fast days in order to arouse the hearts to repent and to remember our evil deeds and the evil deeds of our ancestors which caused the troubles which befell us.
The Zionist leader Berl Katznelson (1887-1944) wrote that if the Jewish people had not known how to mourn for generations on Tisha B’av just as it mourns for a close relative, there would not have arisen Zionist leaders such as Hess and Pinsker, Herzl and Nordau, Sirkin and Borochov, Gordon and Brenner. Yehudah Halevi would not have been able to create “Tziyon, halo tishali” and Bialik would not have been able to write “Megillat Ha’esh”. (quoted by Mazor, p. 170)