The Book of Lamentations (“Eikhah”) is one of the five megillot (scrolls), part of the section of the Hebrew Bible called Writings. It laments the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem during the 6th century BCE, along with the exile of the tribe of Judah. Attributed in the Talmud to the prophet Jeremiah, the book poetically describes the suffering of Jerusalem and its former inhabitants and grapples with theological explanations for that suffering. It is read publicly on the fast of Tisha B’Av.