Few events throughout our internal history have been as nefarious and blatantly anti-Jewish values as the true history and story of Masada. Yet, ironically, it is perhaps for this exact reason that it is often trumped as a glorious episode in Jewish history that is worthy of our commemoration and emulation.

 

If you think that the current divisions in the Jewish community are worse than ever, I recommend stepping into a time machine and going back about 2,000 years. There, in the generations leading up to the destruction of the temple Jews were divided in way so fundamental that they would have appeared as completely disparate religions. That is, after all, what happened with Christianity which started out as just another Jewish sectarian group. Not only were these sectarian groups divided on religious disputes such as the importance of a central temple or even the existence of heaven, but they had their fair share of political disputes as well.

 

The background of the true story of Masada lies in one of these fundamental political disputes. Namely, how do you react to or compromise with a foreign army attempting to hegemonize your land?

 

Roughly 100 years before the story of Masada begins, the Roman army fought their way throughout the Levant arriving at Jerusalem where it was sieged and subsequently conquered, ending the rule of the Jewish Hasmoneans. For about a century, between 37 BCE and 66 CE, the Romans ruled over Jerusalem as tensions between the Roman hegemony and Jewish residents increased rapidly. Eventually the Jews had enough, and in the year 66 CE an army of Judean rebels attacked and freed the city of Jerusalem from the Roman occupiers. Finally, Jerusalem was once again in Jewish hands.

 

Now within this group of Judean rebels was a small Jewish extremist group known as the Sicarii (literally “dagger men”). This group despised anyone who did not share their view of militant Jewish extremism in both the religious and political sphere. Equally antagonistic towards both Romans and Jews, this group earned its name by concealing small daggers under their cloaks inflicting terror on whomever they deemed an enemy. This included Roman soldiers, Roman civilians, and fellow Jews with religious or political disagreements. All in all, the Sicarii probably actually killed more Jews than Romans in their short tenure simply because they were easier targets.

 

Once Jerusalem was back in Jewish hands many of the Sicarii were pushed out of the city by fellow Jews who feared the terrorist group. The half of the Sicarii who fled Jerusalem made their way to a desert fortress called Masada, raiding and killing about 1,000 Jews living on the Dead Sea coast on the way. The Sicarii captured Masada from Roman forces, securing it as a stronghold.

 

But the story only gets worse.

 

Some Sicarii remained in Jerusalem, where tensions were continuing to rise between different Jewish factions, along with the Roman empire who were anything but thrilled to have Jerusalem taken from their hands. In the year 70 CE the Roman army seized Jerusalem in an attempt to reconquer the city.

 

 At this point the Jews had to make a decision: on the one hand they could continue to fight to keep Jerusalem in Jewish control, but on the other hand fighting was essentially futile against the mighty Roman empire. As the Romans continued their siege, Jewish leaders began to consider diplomatic solutions to end the conflict. At least, they thought, if we surrender and the Romans regain control over Jerusalem we can still continue to live here with relative peace and religious freedom, worshipping God in the Temple.

 

The Sicarii, however, had no room for diplomacy within their extremist ideology. While Jewish leaders began the early stages of negotiations, the Sicarii burnt down all of the storehouses of food within the city, essentially forcing the Jews to either starve to death or open the walls of the city and fight the Romans.

 

We all know what happens next. The Romans came in, killing men, women, and children, and subsequently burning down the city including the Jewish temple. The Jews who survived were forced to flee Jerusalem for other areas within Israel and beyond, ending Jewish life within the holy city. The few Sicarii who escaped the city, met up with their brethren in Masada where they were able to hold out against the Romans for another three years. Eventually, when Roman victory became inevitable, the Sicarii committed mass suicide, for death in their minds was preferable to foreign dominion. 

 

This is a very different story than the Israeli tourist, or “Birthright” version that you may have been fed. In the past century, Jewish groups have co-opted the story of Masada, turning it into a story of Jewish sacrifice and martyrdom, holding it up as a paragon of action for the Jewish state. They equate the sacrifice of Jewish soldiers who risk their lives in the defense of the Jewish people with this ancient group of uncompromising extremists who would rather kill their fellow Jews and even their own children than engage in negotiations with the Romans.

 

At this point we can recognize perhaps the biggest irony of all. The Sicarii, with their unwillingness to engage in political diplomacy or compromise and instead opt for militant combat to the death against what they perceived to be illegal occupiers and conquerors of their land, seem much closer to Palestinian “freedom fighters” than the modern day Israelis.

 

In the end, the story of Masada is a perfect recipe of what Jews should not do. While the Sicarii were still in Jerusalem forcing an unwinnable war against the Romans, a Pharisaic rabbi by the name of Yohanan Ben Zakai escaped Jerusalem and arranged a meeting with the future Roman emperor Vespasian. We know that Jerusalem will be destroyed, Ben Zakai told him, but please give us another city where we can continue our Judaism in peace ensuring that it will outlast this war.

 

The scholars in this small town called Yavneh, became the Rabbis that we all know from the Talmud, and it is their form of Judaism, one filled with the ability to compromise and think about difficult situations with a large amount of nuance, that has survived until today.

 

. Moshe Daniel Levine regularly writes blog postings for Jewish Values Online.

 

 

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