Category:Masada (subject)

Masada was a fortress built by Herod the Great between 37 and 31 BCE.

History

Herod the Great built the fortress for himself, as a refuge in the event of a revolt. The fortress included the royal palace.

During the Jewish War a group of Sicarii took control of the fortress, which led to the siege and destruction of the site by the Romans, in 72-73 CE. According to Josephus, lthe Jewish occupants of Masada committed mass suicide, preferring death to surrender.

Masada in ancient sources

The sole literary source of information about the site of Masada are the writings of Flavius Josephus.

Masada in Scholarship

The site of Masada was identified in 1842 and extensively excavated between 1963 and 1965 by Yigael Yadin. The remoteness of the place had left the site virtually untouched.

See Masada: An Epic Story (2009 Eshel), book (English ed.)

Masada in Fiction

In 1927 the poem Metzadah by Isaac Lamdan transformed Masada from a symbol of destruction into an emblem of rebirth, renewal, and reconstruction. The line “Again Masada shall not fall” became a motto of the Zionist movement and made the poem Metzadah the most influential literary work for a whole generation of Jewish Israelis. Especially in the aftermath of the establishment of the State of Israel, the myth of Masada has generated a flow of fictional works.

In the 1950s, units of the Israeli army, who have completed their training, initiated the practice of holding their swearing-in ceremony on top of Masada.

See The Masada Myth (1995 Ben-Yehuda), book