We visited Masada and rode the cable car up to the ancient fortress built in about the year 35 by Herod the great. Masada today is one of the symbols for the survival of the Jewish nation... An uprising by zealots around the year 70 led to the destruction of Jerusalem and a group of 960 men, women and children escaped to Masada and held out there for three years... the Romans could not breach the walls so they moved a mountain next to the fortress to build a ramp... when it looked like the Romans were going to break through the zealots, rather than being taken by the Romans, set up a suicide pact selecting 10 men to kill everyone then themselves....so today the memory is part of an oath taken by Israeli soldiers "Masada shall not fall again." ...it kind of reminds me of the the official motto found on license plates from New Hampshire "Live Free or Die"... kind of makes me glad to live where the motto is just good old "beautiful B.C"....
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