Johanan ben Zakkai

Johanan ben Zakkai (?-ad 80?), Jewish teacher, student of the great teacher Hillel. He preserved the laws and rituals of the Jewish religion after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem by the Roman emperor Titus in the year 70. During the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, Johanan, a prominent member of the Pharisees, escaped from the city to the Roman encampment, according to tradition in a coffin borne by his pupils. He founded a school at Jabneh (near present-day Tel Aviv, Israel) with the permission of the Roman emperor Vespasian, who treated him well. Jabneh became the headquarters of the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, of which Johanan was a member. For the next half century Johanan's school replaced Jerusalem as the spiritual center of Judaism. There, work began, in Johanan's lifetime, on the first part of the Talmud, the Mishnah.