Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was the youngest of the eighty disciples of Hillel the Elder and a student of Hillel and Shammai; Hillel called him "father of wisdom and father of generations". A man of peace who shrank from war, he was the spiritual leader of the people at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70. According to the Midrash he began as a merchant and lived a hundred and twenty years. He first lived in Arav in Galilee, and received the title "Rabban" for having presided for a time over the Sanhedrin.

During the siege of Jerusalem he had himself carried out of the city in a coffin and went to the Roman general Vespasian. He foretold that Vespasian would become emperor and obtained in return: "Give me Yavneh and its sages." There he re-established the Sanhedrin and the academy that enabled Judaism to survive the loss of the Temple, and was among the first to institute ordinances suited to life without a Temple, reorganising religious life around study and prayer. After the destruction he settled in Beror Chayil, near Lod.

He trained five great disciples, including Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chanania. He rests in Tiberias, in the compound that also holds the tomb of the Rambam.