Eleazar ben Yair

Eleazar ben Yair was a relative of the rebel leader Menahem and a descendant of Judas the Galilean, founder of the anti-Roman movement Josephus called the "fourth philosophy." He belonged to the Sicarii, named for the curved daggers (sicae) they hid under their cloaks. In 66 the Sicarii seized Herod's fortress of Masada; when Menahem was murdered by rival rebels in Jerusalem, Eleazar fled there and led the community on the mountain until its fall in 73. Josephus also reports a Sicarii raid on Ein Gedi on Passover in which more than 700 women and children were killed (War 4.402–405).

Josephus puts two long speeches in his mouth on the last night of the siege, urging the defenders to die free rather than live as slaves of Rome (War 7.323–388); according to the account, 960 men, women and children died and only two women and five children survived. Among the inscribed potsherds Yigael Yadin found at Masada is one reading "ben Yair," possibly his own lot. In modern Israel he became a symbol of the refusal to surrender.