Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai was the youngest student of Hillel and the leader who carried the Jewish people through the destruction of the Second Temple.
Before the destruction he lived for eighteen years in the Galilean town of Arav. During the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the Talmud (Gittin 56a–b) tells, his students carried him out of the city in a coffin. He went to the Roman general Vespasian, foretold that he would become emperor, and asked: “Give me Yavneh and its sages.” At Yavneh he rebuilt the Sanhedrin and the house of study, enabling Jewish life to continue without the Temple.
He passed away around 80 CE and, according to tradition, is buried in Tiberias.
