Masada and its History

On Tuesday, March 8th, my mom, dad, their ulpan class and I went back to Masada. As my assignment for skipping school was to write this blog about the history of Masada, sit back and enjoy the not-so-happy story of Masada.

Once upon a time, in a far-off place called Rome, there was a king. He was a rich king and he wanted to make a retreat. That king went and found the plateau that is now called Masada. His craftsman and slaves made an amazing arrangement of palaces, storage rooms, and bathing houses. This king’s name was King Herod.

A group of Jews called the Zealots captured Masada. They didn’t need all the great things Herod built. They didn’t sleep in his palaces or use his fancy bathhouses. They slept in simple rooms and built a small mikvah (ritual bath) in the big bathhouse. They also built a small synagogue.

The Romans were mad that someone had rebelled against them and captured their retreat. The Romans, to show the world that no one would get away with that, surrounded the bottom of Masada. They had 8,000 men in 8 camps. They stayed like that for 2 years.

Then, on the last night, the Roman soldiers started throwing arrows with fire and using a battering ram to knock over the outer wall. Soon everything was in flames. The leader of the Zealots gave a speech about how they would rather die than live as Roman slaves. (Here comes the worst part. If you want to hear a happy story, please stop here. Remember, I warned you!)

They made pottery shards with all their names on them (these are called “lots”) and then picked 10. Those 10 had to kill all of the other Zealots and then one of those 10 had to kill the 9 men and then himself. The next morning, when the Romans came up, all of the people were dead except for one woman and 3 children.

This is a very sad story, but it has a strong point. The Zealots believed that they would rather be dead than be slaves. To me, that was very powerful.

Aside from this story, Masada is an incredible place. The architecture is so impressive. It would have been so hard to build on top of a cliff in the middle of nowhere. Next time you come to Israel, make sure to visit Masada and the Museum.