how to say “national mourning” in Hebrew

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-1.m4a” /]אֵבֶל לְאֻמִּי

Today Jews around the world commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in ancient times, as well as all the other great tragedies of Jewish history.

The term for national mourning is אבל לאומי[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-1.m4a” /].

For example:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-2.m4a” /]תשעה באב הוא יום של אבל לאומי.

Tisha B’Av (the ninth of the Jewish month of Av) is a day of national mourning.

The word אבל[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-3.m4a” /] means mourning, so that to mourn is the reflexive-intensive verb להתאבל[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-4.m4a” /].

לאומי[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-5.m4a” /] means national. You may recognize this word from the name of the Israeli bank – בנק לאומי[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/אבל-לאומי-6.m4a” /] – Bank Leumi.