Masada Revisited Iii: A Play in Eight Scenes

By Arthur Ziffer

Masada Revisited III gives a different view of what happened at Masada in 73 ce when the Jewish defenders, according to the only historical account, given by the historian Josephus in his book The Jewish War, essentially committed mass suicide. Many Jewish people are disconcerted by this. Since Josephus wrote under the constraint of trying to please the Romans, his accuracy is suspect. The version given in this play is hopefully more palatable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481709651

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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© 2013 Arthur Ziffer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 6/3/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0966-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0965-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013901216

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Contents

Characters

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Characters

Decurion

Second

Essene Woman

Essene

Woman 1

Woman 2

Woman 3

Husband of Woman 3

Eleazer ben Yair, Jewish commander at Masada

Scene 1

At 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