CNN CNN Presents December 26, 2013 08:43:00
Up their tents, you know, with far less. >> but it wasn't quite over. rabbi yochanan ben zakai had escaped the besieged jerusalem, smuggled out in a coffin. he made an appeal to the newly emperor, vespasian, asking to set up a peaceful rabbinical academy in the nearby town of yavneh, promising it would be purely religious and not political or military in nature. surprisingly, vespasian agreed. and only a year later in 70 a.d. the rabbi's academy represented judaism's last hope. >> and he brought these scholars together in yavneh and he built for the first time what would become the basis for a...