Yohanan of Gush Halab. A brave freedom fighter, or not?!

Let us take a look, with your permission, into the world of the great rebellion, and get to know one of the leading figures in the rebellion, is he Yohanan of Gush Halab, a tirelessly "brave" "freedom" fighter, or perhaps a terrorist, delusional, bloodthirsty and anarchist-messianic? Judge for yourself

Let us take a look, with your permission, into the world of the great rebellion, and get to know one of the leading figures in the rebellion, is he Yohanan of Gush Halab, a tirelessly "brave" "freedom" fighter, or perhaps a terrorist, delusional, bloodthirsty and anarchist-messianic? Judge for yourself.
For the sake of full disclosure, we note that the information about the central figures in the great revolt against the Romans was taken mainly from the book of Josephus Flavius ​​- "The Wars of the Jews against the Romans", who is known in our society as a disgraced and disgraced collaborator (another state mark, Zhdanovist ), because the people who live all the time on their swords and realize the mantra of "the few against the many", cannot accept the course of Yosef ben Mattheyo - from the commander of the rebellion to a Jewish-Roman historian - and must shed his blood as a traitor. This is not the time and place to put things on the record, but to point out that Josephus Flavius ​​is, in any case, considered an objective and reliable historian, and that therefore the descriptions of the heads of the fanatics in his mouth, are not based on the chambers of his emotional stomach, but on the cells of his analytical mind.
Yohanan of Gush-Helab is presented from the beginning as a moderate character, pursuing peace, and a supporter of the compromising, flexible school of Hillel (against Shammai's approach, saturated with power and obsessive rebelliousness), but with the outbreak of the rebellion, he changed his position and his worldview and became a zealous warrior in the Romans, and perhaps Not precisely for purely religious and sovereign purposes.
Yohanan of Gush Halab was known as a wealthy figure, one who amassed a large fortune as a result of an almost monopolistic business of selling oil to the Jews of the Galilee. His shrewd and manipulative personality, his high economic status, the outbreak of the rebellion against the Romans and the risk of his status as a result of the appointment of Yosef ben Mattathias as the commander of the rebellion on behalf of Jerusalem in the Galilee, turned Yochanan into an extreme jealous and kicking against every social and human convention, not to mention moral. Yohanan was known as a man greedy for power and power, and in his mind was to flee to Jerusalem and lead the rebellion according to his extreme, delusional worldview.
The appointment of Yosef ben Matatiyo was a disgrace in his eyes, and he sought, in every possible way, to testify against the Jerusalem superior and to crush his works. For this purpose, Yohanan uses his historical connections with the Jerusalem leadership, in order to get Joseph ben Mattheya removed, and he also persuades the dignitaries of Tiberias to reject the leadership of Joseph ben Mattheya. He even hatched a plot to literally eliminate the hatred of his soul.
When he fails in these moves, Yohanan fortifies himself in the city of Gush Halab and is exposed, along with the inhabitants of the place, to a heavy Roman siege. A very large part of the city's residents, as well as in the entire Galilee, wanted to surrender to the Romans, in order to save the Yesh and out of principled opposition to the actions of the rebellion. Yohanan and his men prevented this in every possible way, while using threats and actual physical force. A similar phenomenon will take place in Jerusalem, and even there, as described in the literature of the Sages, the zealots blocked the exits from the city, and even those who disguised themselves as dead, so that they would leave the city "alive" and be saved, were frantically stabbed by the zealots ("murder witness" in the version the zealots). The only one who allowed himself to negotiate with the Romans was none other than the well-known Yohanan of Gush Halab. In his manipulative talent he is
He asks the Romans for a longer period of time for the residents of the place to answer due to the sanctity of the Sabbath that has fallen on the land, and further promises that none of the locals will take advantage of the agreed upon respite and escape from the city. The Romans (the "evil") submit, and who takes advantage of the respite and kicks the solemn promise made to the Romans? Yohanan himself, who escaped with all his fanatics from Gush Halab, and on the Sabbath (Bela-Bela's "Soul Control").
Yohanan from Gush Halab arrives in Jerusalem at the head of the group of zealots, and many Jerusalemites gather around him to hear "fresh news" from the front. And John does satisfy their desire. He tells them that he and his friends did not run away from the Romans at all, but sought to strike at them from a safer place, and added as a priest and a priest that the Romans have no strength and power, while the Jews have great power, "and also mocked the foolishness of the innocent (those who are afraid of the war) by saying that even in their actions They have wings, the Romans will not climb the walls of Jerusalem after all the evils that they found them by the villages of the Galilee, because in the walls of these villages they destroyed all their machines". This vigorous propaganda did not go unanswered, and indeed, according to Yosef ben Mattathias: "Many of the youth were tempted by these words and woke up to go to war."
Yosef ben Matthew, awake and concerned about everything that was happening, understood the significance of Yohanan and his zealots, the "robbers" as he called them, going to Jerusalem and expressed that here the robbers outside of Jerusalem joined forces with the robbers inside the city "and no terrible deed was prevented from them... and they did not do their bidding at night And in hiding and they didn't reach out to dark people either, because actually today and in full view of the sun the act of murder took place, and the face marriages began. For the first time they captured Antipas, who was from the royal family and also one of the city's nobles, and in whose hand the people had entrusted the public treasure, and imprisoned him, and after him they put in prison Levi, one of the internal marriages, and Tzufa ben Reuel, who also came out of the royal house, and after them other people raised from the people . And a great fear fell upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and everyone sought salvation for his soul, as if the city had already been struck by war."
A group "consecrates" each other to the tradition of the ancestors and ancient procedures and appointed high priests who are recruited, who do its words as "yish-men" and instruments of all its abominations. And all in all, the zealots turned the temple into a "fortress of tyrants". The fanatics also established a new legal institution, a popular tribunal, completely biased and far from any morality and justice, which brutally judged their opponents.
YBM calls Yohanan a deceitful man who "carried in his heart a desire for a government in the absence of Egypt, and it is a long time ago that there were plots to take the power from him." He "disguised himself as a man who loves the people...when he consults with the people's best interests and not even at night...and after that he revealed his secrets to the fanatics and every advice that the people advised was made known to the enemies by him before it was even clarified and clarified."
But that was not the end of the atrocity affair of Yohanan and his men. Yohanan convinces two zealous leaders from the families of the priesthood to call the Reds for help in order to uproot the "treachery" of the moderate leadership in Jerusalem, which allegedly asked the Romans to take over the city. About 8500 Reds were called and came (recalling the image of "Mapontez" the alliance between the settlers and the evangelical-Messianics from the USA considering the end justifies the means). The zealots opened the city gates to them (those that were locked to anyone who wanted to leave the city) so that the Reds would be slaughtered by the moderates (and there is no righteous person but the one whose work is done by others). The balance of the dead-murdered reached XNUMX without taking into account the acts of looting and robbery. Horror and disgust celebrated together as both sides, the fanatics on one side and the Reds on the other, cheered each other in victory cheers.
The great enemy of the zealots was the Jerusalem leader Hanan ben Hanan. A moderate man who pursues peace, balanced and pleasant in his ways "and he loved freedom with all his soul and also very much desired the government of the people (democracy), and all the time he would reject his own good over the good of the many (the general), and peace was dearer to him than anything else. Hanan and his friend Yehoshua ben Gamla, also characterized by the same qualities, died that night and their bodies were thrown into the street, mutilated and humiliated.
These actions of Yohanan and his men sharpened the delusional leader's desire for a single, tyrannical rule, and for this purpose he set up a system of subordinates, tool bearers and slaves and walked around like a peacock in his city, wrapped from head to toe in royal arrogance.
Yohanan does not forget his supporters and his diners and therefore repaid the Galilean group that supported him, by letting them do in Jerusalem as they pleased "With a lust for robbery and violence, which knew no satiety, the Galileans searched the houses of the rich, and murdered the men and abused the women maliciously, while they were redeemed with the blood of their sacrifices They gave the extortion in wine and drank to its drunkenness, and for a week they committed miracles, because they did their hair and wore women's dresses, and anointed their flesh with myrrh oil, and for the sake of beautification they tore out their eyes, and not only the women's witnesses they put on them, because they also coveted women's syphilis, and in the strength of their lewdness Ask for ways of forbidden love."
Did you think that the corrupt Yochanan did not pocket money? He amassed a great deal of wealth for him from all the looting and looting he conducted in Jerusalem.
As the Roman siege around Jerusalem tightened, so the voice of the sane, moderate camp, which asked to stop the rebellion here and now, grew stronger. The zealots, led by Elazar ben Yair, Yohanan of Gush Halab and Shimon bar Giora, who was a little more moderate than him, prevented, as mentioned, the exit of Jews outside the walls of Jerusalem, and would even test with dagger stabs those who pretended to be dead, including "and any man on whom a shadow of suspicion clung, We will be slaughtered by their hands immediately." Fortunately for us, this sad and problematic case is confirmed in the writings of the Sages, which gives Yosef ben Matatiyo an important dimension of credibility.
The horror has not died down, and this is how the shocking description of the rebellious zealots continues: "The rich of Jerusalem were determined to perish even in their hiding inside the city. The insurgents put many conspiracies, because they say in their hearts to fall to the Romans, and to kill and take their property. And as heavy as the famine in the city was, so strong was the malice of the rebels, and day by day both evils grew together. And when the bread disappeared from the eyes of the beholders, the rebels broke into the houses and searched there, and when they found bread, they beat the occupants of the houses for which they had disputed the matter, and when they did not find bread in the house, they tortured the owner for knowing how to hide the food."
The trago-comic-cynical side of the events of the rebellion in Jerusalem is summed up in the attitude of the fanatics to the temple. We were sure that the temple, the one for the sake of saving, preserving and perpetuating its survival, the rebels launched the miracle of the rebellion, would not be defiled and desecrated by their own hands. We thought and we were wrong. We open the Flavian text and read: "The hands of these people (the zealots) destroyed the city, they forced the Romans to give their name to this victory against their will. And almost by themselves they carried the fire, which was in the hands of the procrastinating Romans, to the temple." This statement is based on the zealots' decision to fight against the Romans, when they fortified themselves in the sacred hall, and thus indirectly brought about the destruction of the Second Temple.
Even in the midst of the last battles, the brutality of Yochanan and his men did not stop: "And when Yochanan's hand was no longer able to steal (from the people), he set his face to the yoke of the holy things and ordered to melt down many of the sanctuaries of the temple and many serving vessels for the worship of God, the jugs, bowls and ladles, and also on The wine injectors ... did not pity his eye.
And to those standing on it he said, that in war for the sake of heaven it is permissible to use the holy things of heaven and for the defenders of the temple of justice to receive from it the bread of their rule. Therefore, he also took out the holy wine and the (holy) oil, which the priests kept to be sacrificed on the Olat Tamim - and they were found in the temple before - and he distributed them to the people of Mono, and they anointed their flesh without fear with the holy oil and drank the wine of the priests (to satiety)."
And at least we thought that when the two, Yohanan and Shimon, were captured by the Romans, they would not flee and would not seek to spare their lives. We thought, and this time too we were wrong. The two asked for mercy from their Roman counterparts, and Yochanan's luck was better than that of Shimon, and he was banned and not crucified.
Behold, the portrait of a rebellious warrior is sketched before us: brave? Not at all. Loyal to his tasks? Not at all. A man of morality and justice? Far from it. Serves as a leadership and social role model? Sorry!? The protector of the temple? He despises and destroys him.
We, our parents, our parents, and our children and grandchildren have been educated about the distortion of the image of the fanatics throughout the generations. The delusional fanatics, the crazy, the Holocaust, turned through the national laundry of words and terms, into the true, moral, self-sacrificing freedom fighters... in short, everything our leaders wanted to assimilate into our society.
And by the way, only a strong society is able to look directly into the depth of its past and say: we were wrong big time.

Dr. Yehiam Sorek, Historian, Beit Berel College

A compilation of Dr. Yechiam Sorek's articles on the Hidan site

https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~92580156~~~185&SiteName=hayadan