Bar Kokhba

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia | Date: 2007

[orig. Simeon bar Kosba] (died 135) Leader of an unsuccessful Jewish revolt against Roman rule in Palestine. In 131 Hadrian forbade circumcision and built a temple to Jupiter on the ruins of the Temple of Jerusalem. The Jews rebelled in 132, led by Simeon bar Kosba, who, according to one story, was hailed as a messiah by Akiba ben Joseph. He was called Bar Kokhba (“Son of the Star”), a messianic allusion drawn from the book of Numbers. His army captured Aelia and inflicted heavy casualties, but Hadrian visited the battlefield and summoned reinforcements, and the Romans retook Jerusalem. Bar Kokhba was killed at Betar in 135, and the remnant of the Jewish army was soon crushed, with total Jewish losses, according to the 3rd-century Roman historian Dio Cassius, numbering 580,000. Surviving Jews were exiled and barred from Jerusalem.



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Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research

Tisha B'Av Meditation: Bar Kokhba: rebel hero or failed Messiah?(Simon Bar Kokhba)
Midstream; 7/1/2007; Kavon, Eli; 787 words ; Yigael Yadin, the prominent Israeli archeologist and statesman, made an extraordinary discovery in the Judean desert near Ein Gedi in 1961. Yadin and his excavation team found in a canyon crevice a letter signed by Simon Bar Kosiba. In the letter, Bar Kosiba describes himself as the leader of an Read more
Forging a hero for a Jewish stage: Goldfadn's Bar Kokhba.(Abraham Goldfadn)
Shofar; 3/22/2002; Wolitz, Seth L.; 787 words ; The emergence of Jewish theater under Abraham Goldfadn permitted an esthetic recuperation of the Past not outside of history as in Biblical Purimshpils but inside history. Goldfadn wanted his audience to retrieve from the stage their lost memory of Jewish sovereignty and in the case of his play, Read more
Bar Kokhba reconsidered.(Letter to the editor)
Midstream; 1/1/2008; Shanks, Hershel; 133 words ; To the Editor: Bar Kokhba's revolt (the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome, 132-135 C.E.) perhaps came closer to succeeding than is suggested by Eli Kavon's article in the July/August Midstream ( Tisha B'Av Meditation: Rebel Hero or Failed Messiah? ). Kavon calls the revolt a hopeless rebellion. Read more
Historic Relaxation
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Avant-trad
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