Time and forgotten history have limited what is known about the secret of the "Cave," an ancient synagogue beneath the Temple Mount that was used by the Jews of Jerusalem. Still, scraps of information, crumbling historical documents, and existing research are gradually shedding light on one of the more intriguing mysteries in Jerusalem.
The only part of the synagogue's story about which there is consensus took place in the first half of the Hebrew month of Av in the year 1099, when Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. Jews and Muslims fought shoulder-to-shoulder for the city, but were eventually defeated, and the Crusaders slaughtered the residents of Jerusalem. Until the Holocaust, rabbis noted the killings as one of the worst disasters to befall the Jewish people since the destruction of the Second Temple. Lamentations written to commemorate the violence were added to the Lamentations read on Tisha B'Av.
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