Av 5783: Maharam's Kinah on the Burning of the Talmud

🔥The famed Maharam of Rothenburg, while a young man of about 25 years, wrote a heart-rending kinah on the public burning of the Talmud, which he witnessed. Here's the history of the kinah, unpacked.

A notably large amount of the kinot recited on Tisha be-Av in the Ashkenazi tradition record, commemorate, and express emotion about medieval oppression of Jews. Today, we’ll take a close look at the history behind Maharam’s kinah (#41 of the daytime kinot in today’s minhag Ashkenaz), which deals with the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1242. We’ll al…