The publication of Simchoni’s updated Hebrew translation of Josephus’s Jewish War in l923 and of the poem ‘Masada’ by Isaac Lamdan in l927, enhanced the impact of the Masada resistance and the defenders’ suicides as a model of heroism. The…
Gitai’s Film ‘The War of the Sons’ (2009)
The film La guerre des fils de lumière contre les fils des ténèbres (The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness) is a recording of a stage production by the renowned Israeli-French filmmaker Amos Gitai (born…
Josephus and Masada Tourism
The Yigael Yadin Masada Museum was opened in 2007 at the foot of the mountain. Josephus is the axis of the tour. He is shown in three dimensions, seated in this garden in Rome and presented as the author of…
Models of the Temple at Jerusalem
Josephus’s descriptions have figured largely in twentieth-century attempts to reconstruct the Temple Mount in model form. They have been set beside both the archaeological findings and tannaitic rabbinic sources (primarily the mishnaic tractates Yoma and Tamid), from which they differ…
Josephus Drawn by Bukhsbaum (2004)
This 2004 drawing by Genrikh Bukhsbaum (1922-2008) depicts Josephus visiting Jewish priests imprisoned by the Roman emperor Nero (Josephus, Life 13-16). Bukhsbaum was born in 1922 in Lvov, Poland (now Ukraine). When the Germans invaded Eastern Poland in 1941, he…