ABÈLE (leg. Avelé) SIJJÓN. — “Those who mourn for Zion,” among the Jews.
The term recurs after the Arab conquest of Palestine (634-40), but already in the Talmud mention is made of persons who, after the fall of the Second Temple, renounced meat and wine as a sign of mourning. On the 9th of Av they would go with other coreligionists to weep over the ruins of the Temple.
Under Arab rule several A. settled in Jerusalem and there formed an ascetic-mystical association awaiting the coming of the Messiah. The Pesqitā rabbatī (c. 845) speaks of them (ed. M. Friedmann, Vienna 1880, p. 158) with particular veneration. The abèlé beth ‘olamīn or abèlé ha-hēkhāl (those who mourn for the Temple) led a contemplative life and subsisted on offerings from the Diaspora. The sect lasted from the mid-7th to the end of the 11th century. When the sect as such ceased to exist, the mourning did not. In Germany in later centuries there lived “those who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem,” who always wore black. Some Yemeni Jews and also certain Karaites who had settled in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 9th century likewise abstained from meat and wine.