Tisha B’Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar marking the double destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is also the longest Jewish fast day, so many people pass the time watching movies, and this year there is a new trend within the already-existing world of kosher Tisha B’Av movies — October 7 content.

In general, watching movies is banned in much of the Haredi community, as it is considered a distraction from the main task of studying Torah and a gateway to immodest behavior. But in some, more open Haredi families, especially in the Litvish and Chabad-Lubavitch communities, it’s OK to watch movies specifically made for Haredi audiences, especially on certain days of the year such as Tisha B’Av and Chol HaMoed when electricity is allowed, all-day synagogue attendance is not customary, and energetic children are home from school or day camp.

Since Tisha B’Av is considered a day of mourning, the movies have to be of suitable tone and about appropriate topics. In the past, this would include Holocaust films or other films about the persecution of Jews throughout history. In recent years, a kosher film industry has grown, with the intention of creating entertainment that affirms Haredi worldviews. These films feature not only exclusively appropriate content, but also inspiring storylines following, for example, nonreligious people who decide to become Orthodox or Jewish people who make generous volunteer efforts to help victims of tragedy.

This year, however, several new documentaries made particularly for Haredi audiences — and that view Hamas’ fatal attack on Israel through a Haredi lens — were released in the days leading up to Tisha B’Av. So instead of harking back to ancient or historical tragedies, this year there’s a proliferation of films connected to the Oct. 7 attacks.

One new video advertised on Tuesday in Haredi news media, Bringing Them Home, doubles as an advertisement for Shuvu, a network of Israeli religious schools for children from secular Jewish families. In the film, Oct. 7-related footage is combined with footage of rabbis lamenting Israeli children who do not even recognize the names of the patriarch Avraham or the prophet Moshe. A young boy says that he grew up in a family that did not observe Shabbat, but began observing Shabbat after hearing an oft-repeated yet misleading claim that some observant people were spared from the killings on Oct. 7.

And in Connecting Through Tragedy, which was also advertised in Haredi media, rabbi and school leader Avi Wiesenfeld narrates the events of Oct. 7 through an Orthodox lens as dramatic instrumentals play. He emphasizes stories of courage and faith, such as a hostage who he says has become more observant while being held in Gaza. According to Haredi media reports, she did not grow up Haredi but, through private communications, has told her family that she now says blessings on what little food she eats and spends every Friday praying that her captors will not make her break Shabbat.

Even films that are not directly about the terror attack incorporate it in their theme. The Hasidic influencer Shloime Zionce released a travelog on Youtube documenting his time traveling in Poland, exploring once-Jewish neighborhoods, tracing back his family roots, and visiting a run-down Jewish cemetery. The video had no substantial Oct. 7 angle, but Zionce decided to take the trip in the aftermath of Oct. 7, after hearing antisemitic people “running around screaming at Jews ‘go back to Poland,’” he says in the trailer for the travelog, which also functions as an advertisement for a tour operator called Lalechet.