“The same divisions as Israeli politics today.”
Daniel smiled. He didn’t profess to be an expert on modern Israeli politics, but Sarit’s point jelled with what little knowledge he had on the subject.
“And there was yet another reason why they were against him. In addition to his hardline stance against the Romans he was also a bit of a social revolutionary. He robbed the rich Jews as well as attacking the Romans.”
“It sounds like he was the Robin Hood of his day.”
“Exactly. And you have to remember that the Sadducee priests — or Tzadokim — were the aristocrats of Judean society. They were effectively the wealthy class. So by attacking the rich, he was attacking their constituency.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t kill him.”
“Oh, they tried. In fact for a while, he had to hide out in the mountain fortress at Masada with the zealots.”
“So he was part of the mass suicide?”
The Masada legend was writ large into Jewish national history. But the story was a lot more complicated that most people believed.
“He wasn’t there at the final siege. You see the man who was really out for his blood was the High Priest at the Temple: Ananus ben Ananus. But then Ananus — or Hanan in Hebrew — was deposed soon after that. Then later Hanan was killed by the zealots who hated the Sadducees because they thought of them as traitors and collaborators with the Romans. In fact he may have been killed by Edomites who were Gentile allies of the zealots.”
“So what then?” asked Sarit. “Bar Giora joined the zealots?”
“Well, sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”
“Well he came down from Masada and joined the fray, staging raids, robbing the wealthy and even killing them — and his social agenda of freeing the slaves and giving financial rewards struck a chord with the underclass.”
“So now he’s the Lenin of Judea.”
“You could say that. And by this stage, he was building up a huge following. But his strength was also his weakness. According to Josephus he had 40,000 civilian followers in addition to his soldiers and the other zealots — like John of Giscala — were beginning to get worried about him.”
“But what was their ideology?”
“Good question. If anything it was closer to his than to the Sadducee priests. They were against collaboration with the Romans — or even compromise — just like Bar Giora. They opposed luxurious living, just like Bar Giora. Some people have even described them as ascetics, although that may be an exaggeration. But ideologically there was nothing to separate Bar Giora from John of Giscaala, as far as we know. But as ever, with ideological movements, there’s always a personal element. It was the cult of personality. It was less like Stalin and Trotsky, and more like Hitler and Ernst Roehm — ”
“That’s a horrible analogy!” Sarit snapped. She had heard enough of this from Anti-Semites, without having to hear it from a Jew.
“Don’t take it literally Sarit, but you have to remember that war always was an ugly business. And there are always personal rivalries. Anyway Bar Giora was considered such a threat to John of Giscala that John’s men sat a trap for him.”
“What trap?”
“Well they knew that militarily Bar Giora was too savvy to beat in a pitched battle, so they lured him into an ambush and captured his wife. They tried to use her as a bargaining chip to get him to lay down his weapons and stop fighting, but instead, he went berserk.”
“In what way?”
“Well he raided Jerusalem — holding the ordinary population responsible for what their leaders had done and he pretty much went on the rampage. When his men caught those who tried to flee, they either killed them or tortured them. In some cases, he cut off their hands and sent them back, telling them to warn the Jerusalem authorities that he’d do the same to everyone in the city unless they let his wife go.”
“And did they?”
“Yep! They were shitting in their pants at what he was doing, because although he may have seemed like a madman, he had a lot of popular support from the poorer classes and the freed slaves.”
“So now he’s what, Spartacus?”
“Robin Hood. Lenin. Mao Tse-Tung. Spartacus. He was all of those and more!”
“So what happened?”
“What happened is they let her go, just like he demanded. At least that’s the first thing that happened. But like all these stories, it can never really have a happy ending.”
“The beginning and middle don’t seem to happy either,” Sarit remarked dryly.
“No and it continued in pretty much the same vein. He couldn’t camp inside the walls of Jerusalem, because that would have made him vulnerable to John’s forces. But he was being squeezed also by the Roman advance. And even with his large force, he didn’t dare take on the disciplined Roman army in a pitched battle. So he camped just outside the city walls and attacked those in Jerusalem that he considered to be supporters of John of Giscala.”
“It sounds like he spent more time fighting against rivals on his own side than he did fighting against the Romans.”
“To a large extent that’s true. And it was ultimately his undoing — his and Johns. Because if Bar Giora was a terrorist, John of Giscala was a tyrant and many of those in Jerusalem were tired of John’s despotic ways and saw Bar Giora as just the revolutionary ruler to get rid of him. This was also true of some of the official priestly authorities that John had overthrown. In fact, in many ways Bar Giora had become a myth of almost Messianic proportions. And this was after the time of Jesus, but before Christianity had grown into a powerful force. So they let him into the city and his men went to war with John’s men.”
“This really is beginning to sound like Monty Python!”
“Except that nobody was laughing — ”
“Or looking on the bright side of life,” Sarit interrupted with a cheeky grin.
“There wasn’t much of a bright side to look on. The city became like Belfast at the height of the troubles, or Beirut during the wars there between Maronites and Muslims. Battles lines drawn and separated by heavily-manned barricades and no-go areas. Bar Giora controlled the upper parts of the city and some of the lower parts, but the bulk of the lower parts and the Temple and its courtyard were still under the control of John. Meanwhile the Romans, under Titus, were closing in and by year 70, they had put the city under siege.”
“And did Bar Giora and John make peace?”
“You’d think so wouldn’t you?”
“But did they?” asked Sarit impatiently.
“Like hell they did. Even though it was the sabbatical year, when they didn’t grow any grain and even with the city besieged, so the harvest couldn’t reach them, they seemed more concerned with attacking each other’s grain stores than with conserving food and fighting the Romans.”
“God, what arse holes!
“I couldn’t have put it better.”
“No wonder they lost!”
“Wait, it gets better. Because another faction broke away and seized the Temple itself.”
“Ye Gods!”
“So now you had three Jewish factions all fighting each other when they should have been fighting the Romans. Of course the Roman’s had a de facto motto: Divide et impera. And while the Romans were doing that, Bar Giora was basking in his near messianic reputation and minting his own coins. Meanwhile his and John’s civilian supporters were staring to abandon them and even their soldiers were deserting, as they realized — what their leaders had failed to realize — that the Romans were closing in. Then — finally — the feuding rivals did join forces, but by then it was too late. Titus had breached the city walls and the belatedly united factions were now fighting for their lives.”