When the servants began to strip away the skin on the forehead where the phylactery is placed, Yishmael cried aloud and died.
Despite the pain consuming him, he was still able to proclaim God's providence in the world by reciting the Shema, drawing out the final Echad - "One".
The next sage martyred was Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion, who was wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive.
Popular imagination seized upon this episode in Jewish history, and embellished it with various stories relating the virtues of the martyrs and the fortitude shown by them during their execution.
Contrary to the accounts given in the Talmud, Midrash Rabbah, and Midrash Eleh Ezkerah,[6] which clearly state that there were intervals between the executions of the ten teachers, the poem Eleh Ezkerah describes their martyrdom as occurring on the same day, probably in order to produce a greater effect upon the mind of the reader.
The poem Eleh Ezkerah is best known as part of the Yom Kippur mussaf recital in the Eastern Ashkenazic ritual.