Woe to the myth on her part

Beyond the fact that a myth was used to justify actions against the British mandate, the question is, did an act of mass suicide even occur in Masada? And also: who was Eleazar ben Yair and who were the Sikriks

Masada's story fascinated, of course, all the curious, from the Bible to the Palmach and Goys, as well as other myths in favor of the beginning of Zionism, which was born in Europe, continued in Israel. The myth settled well in the hearts of the pioneers of the third aliya, in the IDF underground, in the IDF, and in fact to this very day we are in the midst of zeevis with noses on one side and walker watches on the other.
I will divide this article into two parts: the first will deal with the character of the protagonist of the central role in the Masada case, aka Elazar Ben-Yair, and the second will briefly deal with the Masada myth.

A. Elazar Ben Yair

Eleazar ben-Yair was at the head of the Sikriim and reflected a cross section of a very special character during the revolt against the Romans. He was a descendant of Judas the Galilean, one of the first zealots who harassed Herod and every manifestation of Roman rule, and were known for their extremes. Yehuda the Galilean founded the extreme esoteric group called "The Fourth Philosophy (Group)", which radically and vigorously opposed the presence of non-Jewish rule and aspired to Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel. The members of the extreme underground saw in the rule of God on earth the vision of everything and the vision of the ultimate future, and was right to do everything (emphasis added) to realize this step. The lights and the toms of the "fourth philosophy" were Phinehas (the first biblical fanatic) and Elijah, when both of them initiated acts of massacre and murder without any mercy - a kind of murder with the help of God. This sect, it should be noted, laid the foundation for the creation of the Sikri movement in Judea. The origin of the word "sicarius" is Latin = sicarius, which means an iron dagger, and by borrowing an image of a murderer and a violent criminal. It should be noted that during the civil war in Rome, this word was known as a common derogatory expression for members of subversive and underground groups.
Josephus calls them "robbers" and dates the first appearance of the Sicarim to the days of the Roman governor Felix (52-60 CE). In his book "The Wars of the Jews" Joseph ben Matthieu presents the classic business card of the group of Sikriim with this language: "After the purification of the land (from the robbers), a new type of robbers called 'Sikriim' appeared in Jerusalem. In broad daylight they would murder people. Especially during the holidays, they would intervene in the crowd and kill their opponents with small daggers that they hid under their clothes." In his book "The Antiquities of the Jews" Joseph ben Matthew testifies that in the days of Governor Festus (60 CE) "the land was plagued by robbers and all the villages were burned and looted." At that time, those called 'sicari', which means robbers, multiplied the most. They used small daggers, about the size of the akinacs of the Persians, but in their curvature resembled the Roman scimitars. Hence the name of the robbers (sikrim = carrying daggers. Y.S.), who murdered many people."
Elazar ben Yair was revealed to us for the first time right at the beginning of the rebellion, when the tragic mistake of the very outbreak of the rebellion became clear: one of the leaders of the fanatics named Menachem ben Yehuda HaGalili managed to break into Masada and break into the weapons warehouse with brutal violence. He distributed the weapons among his supporters, including members of the mob, who were characterized by violence and were guided by the lust for plunder and robbery. And so, armed at the head of his warriors-robbers, he arrived at the gates of Jerusalem and all he wanted was to stand at the head of the rebels and lead the war against the Romans. Hela eliminates the high priest Hananiah, who was hiding in the water pipe around the king's court, along with his brother Hezekiah, and becomes a tyrannical ruler in Jerusalem. Eleazar's people (the priest) objected to his actions and plans and sought to put an end to his ways and his life. These attacked him in the sanctuary of the temple, when he was wearing royal clothes, which testified to his grandiose intentions. Eleazar's men were accompanied by crowds of Jerusalemites who completely disapproved of the rebellion and Menachem's plans, and pelted him with stones, saying that with his death the rebellion would cease.
Menachem's supporters fled in all directions, and some of them, led by Elazar ben Yair, made their way towards Masada.
Throughout the course of the rebellion in Jerusalem, the figure of Eleazar ben Yair and his Sikyrian zealots disappear, and they are revealed before our eyes only after the fall of the Jerusalem center at the hands of the Romans, when the center of gravity shifts from Jerusalem to Masada. In Masada, the Sikri fanatics are fortified, led by Elazar ben Yair. From there, the Sikri fanatics raided every settlement, Jewish or otherwise, to rob it of everything necessary for their stay in the fortress. One night the Sikris raided Ein Gedi and carried out a terrible massacre there, when children, women and old men were slaughtered by the sword, 700 in number. This terrible event took place close to the Passover holiday (how symbolic?!), during which the zealots looted everything nearby: from looting houses to looting the field and plantation. "And after that" - Yosef ben Mattayyo tells us - "they looted all the villages around the fort (Masada) and destroyed the whole country, and day by day the number of the vandals increased, who came to them in crossings."

B. A myth on her part

The Romans finished planning the siege ring around Masada and implemented it with eight camps (one of which was not manned at all and was intended for psychological simulation only), a wall connecting the camps (a dyke) and the pouring of the battery, on which the destroyers were supposed to pierce the fortifications of the place and score into it. On the eve of the Roman invasion, Elazar ben Yair convenes the Sikris and their families, about a thousand in number, and advises them to give their lives, because any other option, say falling into Roman captivity, is out of the question, since it is better to die as a free man than to live in slavery. Eleazar has a hard time convincing the public, because the people had compassion for their families, for the women and children in labor, and he enlists God in order to substantiate his claims, as if this was his will among the people. "Here is the hour commanding us" - so he said - "and requires him to bear death with a true heart, because it is God's will, and we cannot escape from the decree", or "to die we were born and to die we gave birth to our descendants, and from death even the happiest of human beings will not escape. However, a life of disgrace and slavery and the dishonor of seeing his wife and sons in disgrace - all these evils were not decreed on a man by his creation, and only out of a soft heart do people bear these terrible sufferings, because they refused to choose death at the time of fitness."
In the end, everyone commits suicide there, except for two women (one from Eleazar's own family. Protection?!) and five children who hid inside the water pipes that brought the life liquid to the city.
Beyond the following facts: First - Judaism opposes suicide; Secondly - no archaeological findings were found that could indicate, even by implication, the suicide, and even the "mosaic" - an ostracon with the Ben-Yair inscription on it, or the braids of a girl and the sandals of another girl, do not confirm the suicide of Masada fighters; Third - not a single external source refers to the subject; Fourthly - Sage literature, from which we would expect a serious and significant reference to the suicide case, fills its mouth with water on the subject and leaves the story as lacking historical foundation; Fifth - there are literary signs that raise the assumption that in Eleazar Ben Yair's mouth Greek philosophical words were planted, which impair the reliability of the source (only the speech).
As mentioned, Sage literature fills its mouth with water and does not refer at all, even by implication, to the suicide in Masada, and even to the connection between the suicide and the rebellion.
And so the affair rested for her, like the "Sleeping Beauty" in a rather deep slumber until the prince's kiss, which was embodied in the growth of the Jewish national movement - Zionism. Zionism grew in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of geopolitical movements of the late 19th century. These - the awakening of the national problem in the face of colonialism and imperialism and even jingoism - germinated in a pre-national soil, which was nourished by a developed romantic and pontifical fertilization: almost all the peoples who dreamed of sovereignty and freedom, of liberation from the stranglehold of the control of superpowers, such as the Habsburg in Central Europe , they raised themselves and drew many pieces of courage mixed with "insolence" from their histories, from the multitude of myths that littered the apartments of their lives, such as the German Nibelungen and the Scandinavian trolls. This atmosphere had its influence on a number of Jewish thinkers, from the leaders of Zionism and its initiatives, who said to each other: "Actually, why not?!", and in the atmosphere of searching for myths, which in any case was the domain of literary and lyrical trailblazers such as Smolenskin, Hess, Mapo and others , a Masada myth was resurrected. It was another myth that served the Zionist tendencies well: a desire for freedom, a war for sovereignty, the few against the many, Jewish power, an infectious and entrapping vision, and more.
Lo and behold, a myth from Masada was resurrected and adorned-adorned-crowned with mounds of exaggeration, like the mobilized myths, in the Europe of those days.
The story of Masada ignited the imagination of the pioneers during the Third Aliya period, the members of the "Halutz" movement and the members of the Yosef Trumpeldor Labor and Defense Battalion, and among them was a "politrock" idea whose name was Yitzhak Lamdan, a well-known poet, who composed the poem "Masada", as a line Her punchline was: "A second time Masada will not fall".
The myth then took shape in the Yishuv, and especially among those who were intoxicated by the syndrome of force and the demonstration of the muscles of the Jews against the "kingdom of conviction", i.e. Britain and its branch - the Mandatory Administration - and it won an honorable place in one of the anthems of the Hatzal called "Tagar". At the end of the anthem it is written: "Die or conquer the mountain (a well-known Jabotinsky mantra) - Yodfat (the fourth and fifth are dotted with purple, because of the tone), Masada, Beitar."
Finally, the myth unfolded for him, how could it not, in a society consumed by securityism and power, straight to the IDF, when on the top of the fortress the recruits of the Armored Corps are sworn in in the midst of the audio-visual vision, and even quite a few schools insist on stacking the tardaks on the bus berths and udrov-todrov To Masada: go up with Lil on the snake path and smell the red sunrise from Red-West, walk on the historical cliff and experience the thrill of the audio-visual vision. These are permeated with dramatized, non-historical passages, how a group of warriors and their families fought to the last drop of their blood and sanctified the name in their death, brave and heroic. I'm convinced that someone there will read with dramatic pathos excerpts from Elazar Ben-Yair's speech, and at least the opening line: "O people, heroes of the army..."
And then go and tell the little man on the street that this is a somnolent group, one of several, that was characterized by murder and a religious-ritual thirst for human blood and degraded Jewish society to the brink of the abyss, and that there was no suicide story at all and was not created. He won't believe you. The myth of "heroism" is already embedded in his veins, and it is another layer for building the powerful personality of the individual and the legitimacy to use a lot of power to realize national tasks, especially against the background of the mantra that "the whole world is against us!"