Masada Revisited: A Play in Ten Scenes

By Arthur Ziffer

The play "Masada Revisited" is a semi - fictionalized retelling in play form of an incident set in the locale of Masada, a place near the Dead Sea in modern day Israel, that occurred in 73 ce. It refers to the last event of the Jewish War against the Romans that lasted from 66 ce to 70 ce with cleanup operations lasting until 73 ce, Masada being the last one. The only historical refence is from the book "The Jewish War Against the Romans" written by the historian Josephus who lived in the first century ce. Josephus was not an eyewitness to the incident and was notoriously inaccurate sometimes as well as having to write under the constraint of ingratiating himself with his Roman sponsors. Many Jewish people object to the original form of the story. This version is, hopefully, less objectionable.

The book "Judas the Galilean" by Daniel Unterbrink published by iUniverse contains some background material that is referred to in the play "Masada Revisited".

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462074389

Arthur Ziffer

Previous to this publication, the author has eight publications of plays. Two of them are plays about the famous mathematician, Isaac Newton, with titles “On the Shoulders of Giants” and “Isaac and Amanda.” These were co-authored with Herbert Hauptman, the first mathematician to win the Nobel Prize. He won it in 1985 in chemistry (since there is no prize in mathematics) for his work in crystallography. Three of the author’s plays are about Masada, a place in Israel near the Dead Sea with titles Masada Revisited, Masada Revisited II and Masada Revisited III. After the war between the Romans and the Jews in 66-70 AD, the last surviving stronghold of the Jews was the mountaintop fortress at Masada. According to the historian Josephus, the Romans besieged the fortress for three years and when the Jews realized that the fortress would be taken they committed mass suicide. The author has also written two plays about countertransference in psychotherapy with titles “Countertransference,” and “Retribution.”

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Copyright © 2011 Arthur Ziffer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-7437-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-7438-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011962692

iUniverse rev. date: 02/19/2018

CONTENTS

Characters

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Scene 9

Scene 10

Characters

Decurion

Second

Essene Woman

Essene

Leah

Rebecca

Rachel

Husband of Rachel

Flavius Silva, Roman commander at Masada

Tiberius Julius Alexander, Roman second in command at Masada

Elazar ben Yair, Jewish commander at Masada

Josephus, author of the book The Jewish War

Mark, author of The Gospel of Mark

SCENE 1

A t rise: Sometime during 70 ce, near the end of the Jewish War (66 ce -70 ce) between Rome and the Jews living in what is today the state of Israel. A Roman Decurion and his second in command are talking after the patrol that the Decurion commands has crucified an Essene in the region between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

SECOND

Decurion, all of our men have been killed. The Jews with their bows and arrows waited until it was light and then picked us off one by one.

DECURION

Are you sure all the men are dead?

SECOND

Yes I’m sure, Decurion, but the man on the cross is still alive. If we leave now maybe the Jews will try to cut him down and give us a chance to escape.

DECURION

No they will kill us with their accursed bows and arrows. I should have listened to you yesterday when you said that for us to stay here and wait till the crucified man died was a mistake. We could have made it back to our lines outside Jerusalem last night and been safe.

SECOND

Yes, we should have just killed the man quickly instead of wasting time to crucify him; and then we could have gotten back to our lines before dawn.

DECURION

Our orders are to crucify every Jew who tries to escape Jerusalem.

SECOND

But he was a skinny old man who claimed that he was an Essene and not part of the rebellion and was caught by accident in Jerusalem when the fighting started.

DECURION

Orders are orders. That’s why I was promoted to Decurion and you not, because our Centurion knew that I would obey orders no matter what.

SECOND

And now we are going to die.

DECURION

Yes, probably, but I am not going to wait around to be picked off by some cowardly Jews with their bows and arrows. I am going to challenge whoever is out there to fight me one at a time with a sword. (He leaves.)

(After a while, Elazar ben Yair comes up.)

ELAZAR

Your Decurion was a brave man. He fought well with his sword, but he is dead. Now, if you help me get the man you have crucified off the cross, I will let you leave here and return to your legion.

BEN YAIR

Yes, I will help. I think he is still alive.

(They go and come back.)

ELAZAR

Well, you were right, he is still alive. But I need your help in carrying him to a place where he can recuperate.

SECOND

You mean you are here all alone. You killed