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What do you think of the zealots known in Latin as "sicarii" ?

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Yaakov Mendel:

The group referred to in Latin as "sicarii" was a group of Zealots or members of the fourth philosophy ("sicarii" meaning "dagger men" as they fought with a long, curved knife). What distinguished them from the other zealots was that they had a policy of killing Jews. They raided Jewish habitations and killed Jews they considered apostate and collaborators by cutting their throats.
Do you think they were right ? What do you think would modern "sicarii" do to Jews who are different from them ? 

Lisa:
Wait, are you saying that these sicari were Jews who cut the throats of other Jews whom they considered apostates?  I don't understand your post.

Zelhar:
I think they were largely responsible for the fall of the second temple. I think that Rabban Johanan ben Zakai, the greatest rabbinical authority at the time, opposed the zealots, and he also had to sneak pass them because they refused to let anyone out of Jerusalem during the siege.

Nowadays, there is a group of scummy violent ultrazealot charedim dubbed "sicarikim". Their victims are often other charedim who don't conform to their ridiculous demands. In other cases they attack and harass secular and national religious people in an attempt to push them out of mixed neighborhoods. 

Chaim Ben Pesach:
בס''ד

Jewish zealotry is praised in the Torah. The concept of zealously fighting to save the Jewish people is regarded as noble.

This has often included killing self-hating traitors:

*After the sin of the Golden Calf, Moshe Rabeinu (Moses our teacher) gave the children of Israel the chance to repent for their terrible sin and to return to Hashem. Some of the Erev Rav refused to repent. Moses responded to their refusal by ordering the Levites to kill all 3000 who refused to change their evil ways.

*When Korach and his supporters challenged and ridiculed Moshe's leadership, Moshe prayed for Hashem to destroy them. The earth swallowed them up, killing almost all of them. Korach's sons survived because they sincerely repented, and they eventually wrote several of the psalms. But almost all of Korach's followers were killed.

*Zimri Ben Salu, the leader of the tribe Shimon, was engaging in an open sexual relationship with Cozbi Bat Tzur of the enemy Midianites. Moshe and the other leaders did not act against Zimri, and so Hashem started a plague that killed 24,000 Hebrews. Finally, Pinchas "took the law into his own hands" and killed both Zimri and Cozbi. The plague stopped immediately and Hashem Himself greatly praised Pinhas for his zealousness and declared that Pinchas and all generations of his children and their children would forever be priests. Hashem also says in the Torah that Pinchas prevented Him from destroying the Jewish people completely, chas veshalom (G-d forbid).

*The Macabees killed Jewish Hellenists (Jews who adopted the Western culture of Greece and who supported the Greek occupation of the land of Israel). Killing Jewish Hellenist traitors was a key element in the Macabee revolt that we celebrate on Chanukah.

So Jewish zealotry is actually a sacred part of authentic Torah Judaism.

The destruction of the Second Temple was caused by sinat Chinam (needless hatred) between Jews. When Jews invited the Romans into the land of Israel to help them fight the Greeks and to help them fight their fellow Jews, this is what eventually led to the destruction of the Second Temple. The Romans that Jews invited into the land would eventually destroy ancient Israel and exterminate most of the world's Jews.

muman613:

--- Quote from: Zelhar on September 07, 2011, 05:16:02 PM ---I think they were largely responsible for the fall of the second temple. I think that Rabban Johanan ben Zakai, the greatest rabbinical authority at the time, opposed the zealots, and he also had to sneak pass them because they refused to let anyone out of Jerusalem during the siege.

Nowadays, there is a group of scummy violent ultrazealot charedim dubbed "sicarikim". Their victims are often other charedim who don't conform to their ridiculous demands. In other cases they attack and harass secular and national religious people in an attempt to push them out of mixed neighborhoods.  

--- End quote ---

Yes the Talmud records the fact that these zealots were also responsible for the fall of the second Temple. I learned about this while studying the story of Kamza & BarKamza...


--- Quote ---The biryoni11  were then in the city. The Rabbis said to them: Let us go out and make peace with them [the Romans]. They would not let them, but on the contrary said, Let us go out and fight them. The Rabbis said: You will not succeed. They then rose up and burnt the stores of wheat and barley so that a famine ensued. Martha the daughter of Boethius was one of the richest women in Jerusalem. She sent her man-servant out saying, Go and bring me some fine flour. By the time he went it was sold out. He came and told her, There is no fine flour, but there is white [flour]. She then said to him, Go and bring me some. By the time he went he found the white flour sold out. He came and told her, There is no white flour but there is dark flour. She said to him, Go and bring me some. By the time he went it was sold out. He returned and said to her, There is no dark flour, but there is barley flour. She said, Go and bring me some. By the time he went this was also sold out. She had taken off her shoes, but she said, I will go out and see if I can find anything to eat. Some dung stuck to her foot and she died.12  Rabban Johanan b. Zakkai applied to her the verse, The tender and delicate woman among you which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground.13  Some report that she ate a fig left by R. Zadok, and became sick and died. For R. Zadok observed fasts for forty years in order that Jerusalem might not be destroyed, [and he became so thin that] when he ate anything the food could be seen [as it passed through his throat.] When he wanted to restore himself, they used to bring him a fig, and he used to suck the juice and throw the rest away. When Martha was about to die, she brought out all her gold and silver and threw it in the street, saying, What is the good of this to me, thus giving effect to the verse, They shall cast their silver in the streets.14

11 Perhaps = palace guards (from biryah). The reference is obviously to the Zealot bands who defended Jerusalem.

--- End quote ---

These 'zealots' burned down the storehouses of wheat and supplies in order to hasten a war against Rome... The Rabbis and Sages considered it a very bad strategy in this situation...


But as Chaim points out there are certainly occasions which require zealous action by Jews...

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