Timeline of Jews From 4,000 Years Ago

 Nadene Goldfoot

                                          Judaean Desert

I've discovered that there are many people who have never known of our Jewish history.  They may even think of it as starting in Rome, around 70 AD (anno domini).  

 Horrified, I've made a copy of my own timeline I have done in my blog 'Israel."  Notice, we started back 4,000 years ago in known histories.  Here we go, and I ended at 100 CE-Common Era/AD.  

1391-1271 BCE  from 70 sons, grandsons of Jacob to 611,30 Jews with Moses       

  1010 BCE-970 BCE  King David  of Israel , census of David: c 5,000,000 population
961 BCE to 920 BCE  King Solomon 

721 BCE: Assyrian attack on 10 northern Tribes of Israel, stolen away
597-586 BCE Babylonian Invasion 
          Babylonian exiles returning: 42,360  
167 BCE Revolt of Maccabees against Antiochus the Greek
165 BCE Rededication of Temple by Judas Maccabee (Hanukkah)  From 163 B.C.E. there is evidence of Jews in Rome.  They were probably slaves, Traders?  
139 BCE Jewish community in Rome, expulsed.  Jewish slaves later lived here.  
73 BCE-4 BCE Herod I, the Great, king of Judea appointed by Rome.  When he died, there were uprisings by the people so Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus crucified 2,000 Jews to quell the uprisings.   

69 BCE:  Cleopatra:  Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent and not a native Egyptian. She was the second daughter of King Ptolemy XII and the last sovereign of her dynasty, which had been founded by Alexander’s general, Ptolemy, in 326 BC. She came to power in 51 BC, at the age of seventeen, and was married to her eldest brother, Ptolemy XIII. 
30 BCE  Herod the Great by Julius Caesar, crucifixions; 25,000 Jews till 70 CE.  
 5 BCE, in Bethlehem, Judea, Roman soldiers stationed in Jerusalem from Greece, Gaul and Syria were following Roman appointed King  Herod's orders to kill all male children under age 2.                                

 1 CE 1st century Abba Sikra zealot in Jerusalem during the revolt against the Romans, alias Ben Batiah.  nephew of R Johanan ben Zakkai, helped to escape from Jerusalem.    In the year 6 CE. there were Jews at Vienne, France and Gallia Celtica which would be today's " Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and the west bank of the Rhine in Germany.".   "The first settlements of Jews in Europe are obscure;  in the year 39 at Lugdunum (i.e. Lyon) which is Lyon, France started in the year 43.  
19 CE Jews again expulsed from Rome. 
29 CE Jesus was crucified during Pontius Pilate's rule; starting the narration of Christianity., About 25,000 Jews crucified by Herod till 70 CE.     
49-50 CE Jews again expulsed from Rome. 
60 CE-Nero ruling: 700,000 Jews in Judea, 1,500,000 Jews scattered in other places.  4,200,00 Jews in the world, most likely less.  
61-63 CE  Jeshua Ben Damna, high priest, appointed by Herod Agrippa II, displaced by Gamla and ensued a struggle, toward end of the siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE fled to the Romans with other members of the priestly families.
c.65 CE  In town of Pekiin, Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and son Eleazar hid from Romans in a cave for 13 years.

70 CE Jerusalem burned down, Temple destroyed, Jews starved to death before, taken prisoners.   1st Academy (university to educate rabbis) founded set up by Johanan ben Zakkai at Jabneh in Judah, south of Jaffa, reestablished the Great Sanhedrin in Jabneh until 132 of Bar Kokhba's Revolt.  
70 CE families of 24 Cohenim moved to outside of Jerusalem, each family to a different town, where their descendants lived until 1948. One place was near Kiryat Ata, now Shfar Am, an Arab town.  It has an ancient synagogue.  Survivor interviewed by Sandi Zigelman.
                                                                       

  Arch of General Titus, soon to become emperor,  Menorah Relief; Romans taking away Menorah, other things from Jerusalem Temple, taking 97,000 slaves from Judaea in 70 CE

66-73 CE Judaea which was a Roman Province had the first Jewish-Roman War.  The Sadducees and Pharisees fought against the Roman Empire.  The Jewish commanders and leaders were Ananus ben Ananus, Eliezar ben Hanania, Josef ben Matityahu, and Simon Bar Giora.  In the early stage the Roman guard had 3,000 against 10,000 under Ananus and 15,000 under Bar Giora.  The Romans Syrian Legion had 30,000 in Beth Horon while there were only 500 Adiabene warriors fighting for Judaea.  Eleazar had 20,000 Idumeans fighting.  6,000 were under John and 2,400 were under Eleazar, who were the radical factions.  Then the Romans brought out 5 Legions of 60,000 to 80,000 men at the Jerusalem siege.  Judaea had about 200 Sicarii fighting.  20,000 Roman soldiers were killed while 25,000 to 30,000 Judean rebels were killed and 10,000 radical factions.  In the end, 1.1 million Jewish militant and civilians were killed and 97,000 were enslaved and most likely taken to Rome. 

72 CE 12,000 Jews taken as slaves from Judah to Rome to build the Colosseum under Vespasian.  

Masada in 73 CE Herod's Palace, where 960 Jewish Sicarii (Jewish zealots armed with small daggers) had been living in refuge, committed suicide after 3 months of being sieged by Roman Legion led by Lucius Flavius Silva with 15,000 troops.  1 woman, 5 children escaped.  Story told by Josephus.

From 37  to 100 CE, the land of Judah had been occupied by the Romans as told by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish Historian who was captured by the Romans.  He was hired to write the history of their occupation in the Jewish land.  Individual Jews lived in France before 70 CE.   "The Romans destroyed the Jews' 2nd Temple in Jerusalem and took over the city in 70 CE.  They burned Jerusalem down and took away Jews as slaves for Rome while many others fled. Many  people of Judah had scattered to the 4 winds but  a number were able to remain in Judah.  Organized Jewish communities existed in France in the period of the Roman Empire.  Their position deteriorated with the growth of Christianity and its powers.

"As the siege of the capital, Jerusalem,  in the year 70 began on the day of the Passover sacrifice (V, 13, 7, VI, 9, 3), to which naturally many thousands of pilgrims had arrived from all parts of the country, the number of the besieged was very great. Among them were many from beyond the Euphrates and other foreign lands (Dio Cassius, 66. 4). 1,100,000 men perished during the siege, 97,000 were taken captive (VI, 9, 3); of these only 40,000 were preserved (8, 2), all citizens of Jerusalem (8, 2), the rest were sold for slaves, some sent into the mines in Egypt (9, 2), others distributed among the provinces for the circuses."and where did the 40,000 settle after having been allowed to go where they liked ?

Josephus mentions one of the four sons of the high priest Matthias , the high priests Joseph and Jesus, and three sons of the high priest Ishmael, four sons of a Matthias, and many other nobles who succeeded in escaping from the besieged capital to the Romans (VI, 2, 2). 

Many of the eminent citizens ran away to Titus (V, 13, 7) and told him the number of the poor who had died. Titus allowed these to retire to Gofna; there, he said, they should stay till his hands would be free from the war, when he would restore to them their property. Among the numerous deserters was the priest Jesus, son of Thebuthi , who surrendered many costly vessels of the Temple, as well as the curtains and the robe of the high priest. The treasurer of the Temple also fell into the hands of the Romans and was exceptionally pardoned in exchange for valuable stuff, priestly garments, and costly spices.

 Already, after Cestius's defeat in the year 66, many of the nobles had left Jerusalem as if it were a sinking ship; for instance, the two brothers Costobarus and Saul, along with Phillip, son of Jakimos, who had been a general of Agrippa's troops (II, 20, 1). 

After the entry of the Romans into Jerusalem,  Titus liberated all those Jews who had been thrown into prison by zealots (VI, 9.1); they also most probably belonged to the wealthy section of the population.   It may be assumed as almost certain that the members of both groups, of the priestly and of the lay nobility of Jerusalem, at the conclusion of the war received their landed property, and assisted the poor country of Judaea in recovering from its terrible downfall. 

Where they settled is nowhere indicated by Josephus; he lived in Rome and seemed to evince no interest in the state of his native country after the destruction. It is possible that, though owning land in Judaea, some of the nobles settled outside Judaea, as Josephus, who, in exchange for his fields near Jerusalem, received from Titus others in the plain, and was rewarded by Vespasian by additional property in Judaea 

The Eagle That Ruled Over Eretz Yisrael

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

This map illustrates the Roman Empire at its greatest height.   During the reign of the Five Good Emperors, the Roman Empire was at the height of its power.  The map  shows us that the Romans ruled most of the known world in the 2nd century, when they were at their peak. The most important cities of the ancient world were within the borders of the Roman Empire.                                                                                                               

The eagle was the symbol of the powerful Roman empire, which grew to include Britain, most of Europe, all of North Africa, and the Middle East. 

The governors who were stationed in Judea had other aims.  they were hardened soldiers whose goal was to steal as much as they could from a country before they were transferred to other posts.  One of them even took gold from the Temple treasury for his personal use.  When the Jews protested, thousands were massacred--hung on the crosses. 

                                                 

 Judea went into a rebellion.  The Jewish forces gave the Roman army one of its most difficult challenges.  It was 4 years before the Romans could reach the gates of Jerusalem.  They surrounded the city, and still the Jews held them back for 5 months.                                                                                 

But the Roman army was too powerful to be stopped.  On the 9th day of the month of Av in 70 CE, the Roman battering rams smashed through the walls of Jerusalem.  The 2nd Temple was on fire. 

The rebellion continued. A group of about 1,000 Jews escaped from Jerusalem to a mountain in the desert called Masada.  Its steep sides and flat top made it a natural fortress, and it was built for King Herod.  These Jews, mostly ones called Jewish zealots or Sicarii, Jews that carried knives for defense, remained there for 3 years before the Romans reached the top.  The Sicarii took their own lives rather than have their wives and children face the angry Romans.  The Sicarii (Modern Hebrew: סיקריים siqariyim) were a splinter group of the Jewish Zealots who, in the decades preceding Jerusalem's destruction in 70 CE, strongly opposed the Roman occupation of Judea and attempted to expel them and their sympathizers from the area. 

                             Bar Kokhba/Ben Kosiba, SIMEON.  

The emperors in Rome intended to rule  Judea fairly, but they had to fight the Jewish General Bar Kokhba for 3 years to gain back Jerusalem from 132 to 135, so I really don't think "fair" if the word, even though they were said to be sensitive to the Jewish religion.  Since Judaism forbids sculptures that might be used as idols, the Romans told their soldiers not to bring carvings of the Roman eagle into the holy city of Jerusalem. The revolt may have been from knowing that the Romans were turning Jerusalem into a Roman Colony, plus the prohibition of circumcision. 

   thousands of  Jews hung on crosses on Apian Way

Romans believed in revenge.  More than half a million Jews were killed or sold as slaves.  Anyone who taught Judaism was executed-on the cross.  Jewish villages were destroyed.  Romans changed the name of the state from Judaea to Palaestine, named for the Philistines who were the worst enemy of the Jews before the Romans came along. 

                       

They couldn't win the battle against Judaism, though.  Rabbis risked death to teach the Torah.  Other Jews risked death to study, and to practice their religion. Eventually, Romans had to let them alone.  Jewish schools were built; synagogues were built, leading to the Talmud.                  

At the same time, another group of Jews believed that a rabbi who had been executed on the cross in Jerusalem was in reality the son of G-d.  They called their religion, Christianity.  About 350 years after the death of Jesus Christ, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christians had won over the emperor's mother, Helena.  Constantine, her son, also converted, but rather unwillingly.  Helena had gone to Palestine.   

Now, the rulers of Palestine carried the Christian cross instead of the Roman eagle.  The land of Israel was governed by people whose religion was based on Judaism and whose prophet was a Jew.  This didn't help Jews living in Eretz Yisrael, though. The Christian rulers were still fiercely anti-Jewish.  Life was extremely grim.  The center of Jewish life and learning shifted to Babylonia, where Jews had remained long ago and where all enjoyed great freedom than in Palestine.                      

In about 580 CE, an Arab boy named Muhammad visited Palestine.  His fellow Arabs believed in many gods, and at their religious events, drunkenness and gambling were common, but in Palestine, one-God was worshipped in a quiet way.  Arabs with unwanted infant daughters could bury them alive.  The people of Israel taught, "You shall not murder." Roman Emperors Constantine the Great and Valentinian I decided to ban infanticide across the Roman Empire in the 4th century. The practice ceased in Arabia in the 7th century after the founding of Islam, since the Quran prohibits infanticide.

Years later, Muhammad had visions which guided him to create a religion of Islam, intended to perfect the teachings of Judaism and Christianity.  It taught of one all-powerful G-d who demanded a high moral life, outlawing wine, gambling, and the killing of baby girls.  Arabs became Muslims and followers of Islam. 

                                    

  "Holy War" over Vienna against the Ottoman Empire

A proselytizing movement on behalf of Islam was called a "holy war."  His followers created armies and fought fierce wars.  For 100 years, they moved from victory to victory.  

A century after Muhammad's death, the crescent moon---the symbol of Islam---flew from Spain on the west to India on the east.  Eretz Yisrael was the 1st stop on the Muslim march.  Except for a brief interruption, Muslims ruled the land for nearly 1,300 years.                   

                                   

That brief interruption was caused by the Crusades, launched by the Christians of Europe to try to recapture the land of Jesus from the Muslims. Several Crusader armies never even reached the Holy Land!  As they marched across Europe, they murdered innocent Jewish men, women and children.  After conquering Jerusalem, the Crusaders slaughtered almost every Jew and Muslim in the city.  In time they were driven away.    

Resource:

 A Young Person's History of Israel 2nd edition by David Bamberger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Masada

The Source by James Michener 

THE MASADA in Israel's History and Today

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

One mile West of the Dead Sea lies a lofty, isolated rock in Israel.  It's called Masada.  It's where all the IDF are sworn into the service of becoming the Israel Defense Force.  Why here?  Because of its history of Zealots being the last to stand for Israel.                                                                    

 Zealots were a Jewish political party in 2nd Temple Times founded in 6CE b Judah the Galilean and Zadok the high priest who demanded non-compliance with the Roman demand for a census which was their assessment of property on the grounds that this would constitute an acknowledgment of subjection.  Most likely they joined or already were Essenes who were living in caves.  They claimed that the sole ruler of the Jewish nation was G-d.  Their numbers were increasing.          

Their presence endangered another group, the Sicarii, a rebel group in the late 2nd Temple Period.  They were called after the dagger (sica-Latin) that they carried beneath their clothes.  They were against those desiring peace with Rome because of what they would be forced to lose in the process-their own religion, Judaism.  Menahem ben Jair and ELEAZAR BEN JAIR were known Sicarii.  

During the period immediately preceding the revolt against Rome in 66 CE, the Zealots won adherents from all social strata.  After the conflict with Rome had been sparked off, Menahem, son of Judah the Galilean, a member of the Sicarii, went to Jerusalem and appears to have claimed messianic status, and was slain by the captain of the Temple, Eleazar ben Hananiah.  His comrades, led by his kinsman, Eleazar Ben Jair, fled the city to Masada.   

                                                                 

It was originally a fortified area by the Judean king Alexander Yannai who was also the Cohen-the high priest,  who reigned 103-76 BCE, who was the son of John Hyrcanus, a Hashmonean of our Chanukah days,  and then served as a refuge for King Herod's family in 40 BCE when it was unsuccessfully besieged by Antigonus Mattathias.  Later, Herod built a palace there.                                   

Masada is on a massive plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. A cable car and a long, winding path climb up to the fortifications, built around 30 B.C.E.  Among the ruins are King Herod's Palace, which sprawls over 3 rock terraces, and a Roman-style bathhouse with mosaic floors.  Recognizing the defensive advantages of Masada, Herod built his complex there as a winter escape and haven from enemies, complete with castle, storerooms, cisterns and a foreboding wall.   

                                                                   

                      

It became a Roman garrison.  It was annihilated by the zealot,  Eleazar ben Jair in 66 CE and Masada was a Zealot fortress  Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's 2nd Temple in 70 CE.  Zealots had escaped to this high mountainous fortress with their wives and children who lived up there until the Romans came for them, ready to kill them all as they had done to Jerusalem.  The Zealots held out until 73.  What happened then was formidable.  The garrison of 960 Zealots and their wives and children under Eleazar, committed suicide in order to avoid capture by the Romans who were sure to do more savagery than just kill them with one blow.  They expected the worst; punishment for living.  Books have been written about it.  The one I read told of an older woman and child who was left alive, and the Romans let them live.                                              

Led by Flavius Silva, a legion of 8,000 Romans built camps surrounding the base, a siege wall, and a ramp on a slope of the Western side of the mountain made of earth and wooden supports. (Peter O'Toole on TV)

After several months of siege without success, the Romans built a tower on the ramp to try and take out the fortress’s wall. When it became clear that the Romans were going to take over Masada, on April 15, 73 A.D., on the instructions of Ben Yair, all but two women and five children, who hid in the cisterns and later told their stories, took their own lives rather than live as Roman slaves.                        

According to Josephus’s account in The Wars of the Jews: “They had died in the belief that they had left not a soul of them alive to fall into Roman hands; The Romans advanced to the assault … seeing none of the enemy but on all sides the awful solitude, and flames within and silence, they were at a loss to conjecture what had happened here encountering the mass of slain, instead of exulting as over enemies, they admired the nobility of their resolve.”

In later centuries, the site became a Roman post, a Byzantine chapel, and a Crusader stronghold.  A survey in 1955-6 uncovered the remains of Herod's palace as well as another palace dating from the Hasmonean Period. 

In 1963-5, extensive excavations were under Yigael Yadin--and the finds included scroll fragments and the site of the earliest known synagogue in Israel. 

Now an Israeli national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 840-acre complex holds well-preserved ruins attesting to the history of the ancient kingdom of Israel and the courage of its people in the face of a Roman siege.  The Masada Museum has archaeological exhibits and recreations of historical scenes for today's visitors.  

Resource:  

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-new-political-religious-judean.html

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/masada

The New Political-Religious Judean Defense Forces: The Zealots

 Nadene Goklfoot

 from ABC's TV movie, The Masada-Romans discovering the bodies of the Zealots.  

It so happened that Judah, the Galilean and Zadok, the high priest founded the political party of the Zealots in  the year 6 CE.  Zadok was a Sadducee and he demanded non-compliance with the Romans who were demanding that a census be taken in Judah which was for assessing the property of the Jews.  It would also acknowledge the Jews as subjected subjects of Rome.  

The Zealots took on religious ideals of their own and proclaimed G-d as the sole ruler of the Jewish nation.  They struggled with 2 powers;  that of foreign rulers such as Rome and their own Jewish people-the more wealthy who seemed to be obeying Roman law , taking them steps away from Judaism.

                                                   

The Zealots were oppressed terribly by the many governors of Judah, and increased their numbers.  One of their best leaders had been Eleazer ben Dinai who was executed by Felix Antonius, a governor (Procurator) in 73. He had been involved in border conflicts with the Ammonites and the northern Israelite Samaritans.  Felix had captured Eleazer and his men  in a ruse   (52-60) and as a prisoner, was sent to Rome where he died, possibly on one of their many crosses that lined the Apian Way.                

   Masada,  originally a place of refuge for Herod's family in 40 BCE when beseiged by Antigonus Mattathias.  Later, Herod built a palace on the top.  The Roman garrison was annihilated by Eleazar ben Jair in 66 CE and it became a Zealot fortress until 73 when the garrison of 960 under Eleazar died by their own hand.  

Masada was where Jews committed suicide rather than die by Roman hands. Masada was the last act of the Jewish war. The Jews became scattered into areas around the Mediterranean with many thousands being sold into slavery. Losses: Sicarii, 1,000; Roman, unknown..                               

The movie was based on the book, The Antagoists by Ernest Gann,, now on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8CL7HiJhY.  

Zealots endangered the Sicarii rebels, named after a dagger they carried under their clothing.  They were murdering their political opponents who desired peace with Rome, knowing what price one had to pay for it that weakened their religious beliefs in one G-d.  The most well-known Sicarii was Menahem ben Jair and Eleazar ben Jair who held the Masada against the Romans until 73 CE.  

When the War against Rome started in 66, the Zealots were gaining members from all the different social strata.  After the conflict started,  Menahem, son of Judah the Galilean, a member of the Sicarii, went to Jerusalem and claimed messianic status but was slain by the captain of the Temple, Eleazar ben Hananiah.  His comrades, led by his kinsman, Eleazar ben Jair, fled the city to Masada.  Their omission from the revolutionary government came as a great disappointment.  The Roman successes in Galilee weakened the government and strengthened the position of the Zealots who terrorized their opponents, becoming terrorists.  They deposed the high priest and elected his successor by lot.   This caused the whole population to rebel against the terror and drove the Zealots under Eleazar ben Simon into the inner court of the Temple.  The Zealots in turn called for the support of the Iumeans who entered Jerusalem and massacred many of the citizens.  

Finally, the Zealots, under their leader, John of Gischala, regained control of Jerusalem and resumed their terrorism.  They were driven back into the Temple by Simon bar Giora, were in charge of the city when the final siege began in 70.                                                     

                         Zealots and Essenes : Quite different  

  After the terrible destruction of the city in 70, some of the zealots fled to the forest of Jardes where the Romans slaughtered them.  Others had fled to Egypt and Cyrene where they tried to stir up trouble but  were largely wiped out.  However, the North African revolt of 115-117 may have been caused by their descendants. Attempts have been made to identify the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Zealots.   

What would have happened had there been no Zealots or Sicarii and peace was made with Rome, instead?  What would have happened to the Jewish religion?  

Do you see the difference between Hamas terrorism of Gaza  and the Zealots and Sicarii terrorism?  Similarities?  

Resource:  

https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Masada

Suicide: A Biblical Problem Invoking A Law About It

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Kamal Ravikant is the author of the bestselling books, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It and Live Your Truth

   Jewish law centers around the important value on all of life.  Therefore, it stands to reason that the act of suicide is looked upon  as a crime.  Moses was born in 1391 BCE and died in 1271 BCE, over 3,000 years ago, and suicide must have been in existence then.  The deliberate self-destruction is equal to murder, since it is murdering oneself.  So when it came to burial of a suicidal victim, the person was treated as a convicted murderer and denied normal burial and customs involved in mourning.

With the era of psychology, we have Jews leading in becoming psychologists and studying suicide and its causes.  It had been realized that most suicides have a mental unbalance and that some could not be condemned at all for their action.
                                                                           

 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a Jew born in Pribor, a town in Moravia in the Austrian Empire, later to be called the Czech Republic but lived and worked in Austria  who was the founder of psychoanalysis.  He spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria which he left and emigrated to London after the Nazi invasion in 1938.  He had a successful scientific career as a neuropathologist and clinical neurologist.  He went into hypnosis which he used in treating neuroses of people.  He invented the method of "free-association" where a patient speaks out about what is on his mind.  He was experiencing anti-Semitism as a child and later as an adult.  Perhaps this experience caused him to dislike all religion including his own, as he saw it as an irrational manifestation of the human mind which was traceable, by the aid of psychoanalysis, to early personal internal conflicts like other neuroses.  In the year he died, 1939, he was working on of the controversial study, MOSES AND MONOTHEISM, when Freud presented data based on psychoanalytical concepts, to prove that Moses was an Egyptian man-and not believing that he was in fact the brother of Aaron, a Jewish Egyptian slave.  Freud went on to discuss the nature of religion.  

Too bad they hadn't discovered DNA Freud's his day.   "Three of the ancient Egyptian mummified individuals were analysed for Y-DNA, and were observed to bear paternal lineages that are common in both the Middle East and North Africa. The researchers cautioned that the affinities of the examined ancient Egyptian specimens may not be representative of those of all ancient Egyptians since they were from a single archaeological site.  I know that King Tut's line resembled the alleles found in R Haplogroup.  The male line of Y is much harder to retrieve than the female (mt) line.  

                                                    

Josef Breuer (1842-1925 Vienna, Austria),  was a distinguished physician who made key discoveries in neurophysiology, and whose work in the 1880s with his patient Bertha Pappenheim, known as Anna O., developed the talking cure and (cathartic method) and laid the foundation to psychoanalysis as developed by his protégé Sigmund Freud.

Max Wertheimer was an Austro-Hungarian-born psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler.                                                     

Max Wertheimer was born in 1880 in Prague, Austria-Hungary and died in 1943 in New York, USA.         

  Biblical suicides include Samson written about in Judges 16:30 who gave his life in order to also take the Philistines with him.  He had been deceived by Delilah who betrayed the secret of his strength by telling the Philistines to cut his hair.  They also put his eyes out and forced him to walk in chains to move the prison mill.  When he became the object of mockery, that was it.  He lost it and used his strength to move the pillars that caused the building to fall, killing all there, including himself.                         

King Saul

                                                                        

Samson

                               
The first king of Israel, Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, found in Samuel 31:4, had committed suicide.  The Philistines and Ammonites were united in a major attack on the Israelites, who had judges ruling over them, so with the threat, the people demanded a king, and Samuel, a prophet, chose Saul for the position.  With his leadership, they defeated their enemy.  Yet he was at odds with Samuel anyway for other reasons, and Samuel replaced him with David.  Saul was so jealous of David that he drove him out of the country.  This time the Philistines attacked again and Saul fell with his 3 sons in battle.  He fell on his sword (committing suicide) to avoid capture in the battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, during which three of his sons were also killed.   
                                                                             

 According to Josephus, the siege of Masada by troops of the Roman Empire at the end of the First Jewish–Roman War ended in the mass suicide of 960 people, the Sicarii rebels and their families hiding there.

 In 73 CE, the garrison of Masada killed themselves rather than be taken by the Romans who were sure to be cruel and angry with the holdouts who had caused the Roman reputation to be tarnished and they killed themselves with a system without pain as much as they could.  They had certain men be the slayers until none were left.  One woman left without others seeing her with a few children, the only ones alive after the Romans entered and found all dead. 
                                                       

Soldiers singing Hatikva, Israel's national anthem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsg5QswBQ1Q

 Today, Masada is the scene of the swearing in ceremony for IDF, Israel Defense Force. Among the ruins are King Herod's Palace, which sprawls over 3 rock terraces, and a Roman-style bathhouse with mosaic floors. Masada is one of Israel's most popular tourist attractions. 
                                                                           

Clifford's Tower where suicide took place in York, England

Later, in the year 1190, the 150 Jews of York, England killed themselves to avoid falling into Christian hands.  It happened on the Sabbath before Passover on March 16, 1190 when the York Jews, headed by Rabbi Yom-Tov of Joigny, France, were besieged in the Castle Keep by a bloodthirsty mob and it ended with them killing one another rather than surrender to the mob. "Seeing no way out to safety most of the Jews chose to commit suicide in the keep. The alternatives were to renounce their faith and surrender to forced baptism or death at the hands of the mob.. "  They really were left with no choice.  
                                                                    

Keeps were large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the castle fall to an adversary. The first keeps were made of timber and formed a key part of the Motte-and-Bailey castles that emerged in Normandy and Anjou during the 10th century; the design spread to England as a result of the Norman invasion of 1066,

After killing their wives and children they set fire to the wooden keep and killed themselves.."   Jews continued to live in York who had come in from other places till 1290 when all were expulsed.  A few Jews do live there today.                                 

                                                                               
There were Jews who committed suicide in order to avoid the horrible killing fields and gassing of masses of Jews held in concentration camps by the Nazis.  

When suicide is the action from mental disturbances, the person is buried in a normal way, but when it's not mentally caused, the person was buried in a plot at the side of the cemetery.  It's hard to imagine what kind of cause that would be.  Any of the above would have caused great mental anguish to cause the taking of one's own life. 
                                                       

 Thank goodness we have police trained in talking down people about to do something drastic like jumping off a high bridge or building.  They do their very best in preventing the taking of a life from any cause, even from oneself.  

Suicide rates by WHO region in 2015 (per 100 000 people)^[14][15]

WHO region	Crude rateu	Age-standardized rate	Crude male rateu	Crude female rateu	Male–Female ratiou
Southeast Asia	13.3	13.3	14.9	11.7	1.27
Africa	7.4	12.8	9.9	4.9	2.01
Europe[note 3]	15.7	11.9	25.2	6.8	3.73
Western Pacific	10.2	9.1	10.9	9.5	1.15
Americas	9.9	9.1	15.2	4.6	3.27
Eastern Mediterranean	3.9	4.3	5.0	2.7	1.84
Global	10.7	10.7	13.6	7.8	1.74

Reference:The Voices of Masada by David Kossoff
The Antagonists by Ernest K. Gann-Jew vs Roman in "one of the most heroic stories ever created...surely Gann's best best book quote from Irving Stone.
  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-jewish-interest-in-psychology.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_American_psychologists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_history_of_Egypt
Jewishgen.org--Pribor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Breuer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Wertheimer
http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massacre
http://medievalcastles.stormthecastle.com/inside-a-medieval-castle-keep.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/22/health/ancient-egypt-mummy-dna-genome-heritage/index.html