Jews
"The enemy trapped the Jews in the city by building a wall around it. Foodstuffs
could not be brought in: starvation and crowded conditions gave rise to disease,
and epidemics spread among the populace. But surprisingly the Jews held on.
Then the enemy massed troops outside the wall and brought out the latest in
weaponry. They attacked, using fire to spread destruction. The Jews repelled the
enemy a number of times. So savage was the resistance that the campaign to
destroy the Jewish population took much longer and cost more troops than
anticipated. Street by street the fighting raged with hand-to-hand combat
between the heavily armed troops and the haggard defenders. Some Jews tried to
escape through the sewers, but they were flushed out by fire. At the end the
Jews had taken a heavy toll on their enemy but the city lay in smoking ruins.
The remaining Jewish survivors were rounded up to be used as slave laborers or
to be killed.
What episode in Jewish history is depicted in this scenario? Most people would
say this was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis in 1943. But in fact
it was the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in the year 70
The destruction of the Second temple and the attack on the Warsaw Ghetto,
although separated by nearly two thousand years have and eerie sameness. The
Germans sealed off the Warsaw's Jewish population with and eight-foot brick
concrete wall. The Romans built a high earthen barricade around Jerusalem to
make certain the Jews could not escape. Germans shot, on the spot Jews
discovered outside the Warsaw Ghetto. The Romans crucified the Jews they found,
placing crosses atop the hill to terrorize those watching from inside ...