See also the words of the Honorable Justice Y. Cohen, at p. 391:
"Tisha B'Av will be committed to its holiness in Jewish tradition, not specifically in a religious matter, but as a subject with a general Jewish essence."
This was also the opinion of the District Court in Criminal Appeal (Tel Aviv) 1925/86 Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa v. Dekel Cinema in Tax Appeal et al. [21].
The national value of memorial days such as Tisha B'Av and the importance of such dates in the collective national memory of the people of Israel were discussed not only by the courts but also by leaders and thinkers, not necessarily religious ones. Thinkers have always recognized the importance of Jewish tradition in its unifying role in the life of the Jewish people, and have understood that concepts such as Shabbat, Tisha B'Av, and the prohibition of eating pork are of enormous national importance, beyond their religious importance. Here are a few examples:
Berl Katznelson (1887-1944), a teacher-leader of the Zionist labor movement, a thinker and writer, who was not a "devout" Jew, heard in 1934 that one of the youth movements "scheduled the departure of its members to the summer camp on the same night that Israel laments its destruction, its slavery and its rebellion in exile," sat down and wrote an article that he called "destruction and detachment." The article was published in the public domain and later also collected in the writings of Berl Katznelson (vol. 6) [29],
at pp. 365-367.
Berl wrote, among other things, that it is inconceivable that any member of the youth movement deliberately scheduled the annual trip on Tisha B'Av, but:
"This ignorance in itself is what arouses sad thoughts about the cultural level and the value of the educational activity of some of the youth counselors."
Later, the learned author added:
"What is the value of the flourishing of a liberation movement that has no roots and has with it a forgetfulness that, instead of nurturing and deepening among its subjects, the sense of origin and knowledge of the sources, blurs the memory of the starting point? Would we still be capable of a revival movement today if the people of Israel had not guarded the memory of the destruction with a holy stiffness of their necks?... If Israel had not known how to mourn for generations over its destruction on Memorial Day... Neither Hess nor Pinsker, nor Herzl nor Nordau would have risen up for us... And Yehuda Halevi could not have created Zion Ha-Tishul, and Bialik could not have written the Scroll of Fire" (my emphases – Y.P.).