MEGHILLATH TA'ANITH ("Scroll of Fasts"). — A list of 35 days in the year on which fasting and delivering funeral orations were forbidden, because they were days of joyful national remembrance, of deliverance from persecution, and therefore intended to encourage and gladden the people.
The text of M. T. was composed in Aramaic in its final form under Hadrian (A.D. 117–38); it covers events from the Maccabean period, beyond the war of A.D. 70, down to the revolt under Hadrian. The explanations of the origin and the events to which the memorial days refer date from a post-Talmudic period (9th century) and are written in Hebrew. Glosses from a later period are not lacking.
BIBL.: H. L. Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch, 5th ed., Munich 1921, p. 12; L. A. Rosenthal, s. V. in Jud. Lex., IV, col. 30.