The Fast of Gedalye is one of the minor fasts - it only lasts from dawn to nightfall, as opposed to a full 24 hours, from sunset to nightfall - on which we mourn the destruction of Jewish life in the Land of Israel. This fast remembers the assassination of Gadalye the son of Achikam. Gedalye was appointed governor of Judea by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezer, after the Babylonians had destroyed the first temple, in the year 587 BCE, and exiled most of the Jews to Babylon. Under Gadalye, some form of Jewish life and autonomy was able to persist, in spite of the Babylonian conquest. In 582 BCE Gedalye was assasinated by a Jew, Yishmael ben Netanyah, who had been sent by the King of Moab. Upon his death, the remaining Jews of Judea fled the country, bringing organized Jewish life in Israel to an end until the return to Zion and the building of the second temple some 65 years later.