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For other uses, see Bar Kokhba.

Simon bar Kokhba (Hebrew: שמעון בר כוכבא, also transliterated as Bar Kokhva or Bar Kochba) was the Jewish leader who led what is known as Bar Kokhba's revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE, establishing an independent Jewish state of Israel which he ruled for three years as Nasi ("prince," or "president"). Background After the failed Great Jewish Revolt in the year 70 the Roman authorities took measures to suppress the rebellious province The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial For the Arab month by this name see Nasi (month. Also the Malay/Indonesian word for rice His state was conquered by the Romans in 135 CE following a two-year war. He became the last king of Israel in history.

Originally named Simon ben Kosba (Hebrew: שמעון בן כוסבא or ben Koziba, בן כוזיבא), he was given the surname Bar Kokhba (Aramaic for "Son of a Star", referring to the Star Prophecy of Numbers 24:17, "A star has shot off Jacob") by his contemporary, the Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva. Aramaic is a Semitic language with The "Star Prophecy" was a Messianic reading applied by radical Jews and early Christians to a text from the Book of Numbers 2417 There Akiva redirects here For other people and things with this name see Akiva (disambiguation.

After the failure of the revolt, many, including rabbinical writers, referred to Simon bar Kokhba as "Simon bar Kozeba" ("Son of the lie"). Rabbi (pronunciation, although in English usually) in Judaism, means a religious ‘teacher’ or more literally ‘my great one’ when addressing any master

Contents

Second Jewish revolt

Main article: Bar Kokhba's revolt

Despite the devastation wrought by the Romans during the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE), which left the population and countryside in ruins, a series of laws passed by Roman Emperors proved the incentive for the second rebellion. Background After the failed Great Jewish Revolt in the year 70 the Roman authorities took measures to suppress the rebellious province Year 66 was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Julian calendar. Year 73 was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Julian calendar. The last straw were laws enacted by Roman Emperor Hadrian, including an attempt to prevent Jews from living in Jerusalem, and a new Roman city, Aelia Capitolina, being built in its place. Aelia Capitolina ( Latin in full Colonia Aelia Capitolina) was a city built by the emperor Hadrian in the year 131, and occupied The second Jewish rebellion took place 60 years after the first and re-established an independent state lasting three years.

The state minted its own coins, which were inscribed "the first (or second) year of the redemption of Israel". Bar Kokhba ruled with the title of "Nasi". The Romans fared very poorly during the initial revolt facing a completely unified Jewish force (unlike during the First Jewish-Roman War, where Flavius Josephus records three separate Jewish armies fighting each other for control of the Temple Mount during the three weeks time after the Romans had breached Jerusalem's walls and were fighting their way to the center). Josephus (AD 37 – c 100 also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu (Joseph son of Matthias and after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus The Temple Mount ( הַר הַבַּיִת, Har haBáyit) also called the Noble Sanctuary ( الحرم القدسي الشريف, al-haram A complete Roman legion with auxiliaries was annihilated. For other uses see Legion The Roman Legion (from Latin legio "military levy Conscription," The term auxiliaries comes from the Latin auxilia (help It is generally used to describe people employed in an organisation often pre-existing as a Reserve The new state knew only one year of peace. The Romans committed no less than twelve legions, amounting to one third to one half of the entire Roman army, to reconquer this now independent state. Being outnumbered and taking heavy casualties, the Romans refused to engage in an open battle and instead adopted a scorched earth policy which decimated the Judean populace, slowly grinding away at the will of the Judeans to sustain the war. A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method (possibly more often referred to as a tactic but this is not entirely correct as there is a difference between Bar Kokhba took up refuge in the fortress of Betar. Betar was the last standing Jewish fortress in the Bar Kochba revolt of the 2nd century AD destroyed by the Roman army on Tisha B'av The Romans eventually captured it and killed all the defenders. According to Cassius Dio, 580,000 Jews were killed, 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed. Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus ( Greek:) (c 155 or 163/164 to after 229 known in English as Cassius Dio, Dio Cassius, or Dio was Yet so costly was the Roman victory that the Emperor Hadrian, when reporting to the Roman Senate, did not see fit to begin with the customary greeting "If you and your children are well, all is well. Publius Aelius Hadrianus (January 24 76 &ndash July 10 138 as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after The Roman Senate was a political institution in Ancient Rome. For I and the army are all in good health. ", and is the only Roman general known to have refused to celebrate his victory with a triumphal entrance into his capital.

In the aftermath of the war, Hadrian consolidated the older political units of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria into the new province of Syria Palaestina (Palestine). Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The new provincial designation was derived as an insult from the name of the enemies of the Jews, the Philistines who had occupied the coastal plain in ancient times. The Philistines ( Hebrew פלשתים plishtim) (see "other uses" below were a people who inhabited the southern coast of Canaan,

Over the past few decades, much new information about the revolt has come to light, thanks mainly to the discovery of several collections of letters, some possibly by Bar Kokhba himself, in the caves overlooking the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea (יָם הַ‏‏מֶ‏ּ‏לַ‏ח, "Sea of Salt"البَحْر المَيّت, "Dead Sea" is a salt lake between [1] These letters can now be seen at the Israel Museum. The Israel Museum Jerusalem (מוזיאון ישראל ירושלים Muze'on Yisrael Yerushalayim) was founded in 1965 as Israel 's National museum. [2]

Bar Kokhba in the Arts

Since the end of the nineteenth century, Bar-Kochba has been the subject of numerous works of art (dramas, operas, novels, etc. ), [3] including:

Another operetta on the subject of Bar Kokhba was written by the Russian-Jewish emigre composer Yaacov Bilansky Levanon in Palestine in the 1920s. Yaacov Levanon (originally Yaacov Bilansky) ( Korets, Ukraine 1895- Jerusalem, Israel 1965 was a Jewish musician and composer in the

John Zorn's Masada Chamber Ensemble recorded an album called Bar Kokhba, showing a photograph of the Letter of Bar Kokhba to Yeshua, son of Galgola on the cover. John Zorn (born September 2 1953 in Queens, New York City) is an American Avant-garde Composer, arranger, Record Bar Kokhba is a Double album by John Zorn, recorded between 1994 and 1996

The Bar Kokhba game

According to a legend, during his reign, Bar Kokhba was once presented a mutilated man, who had his tongue ripped out and hands cut off. Unable to talk or write, the victim was incapable of telling who his attackers were. Thus, Bar Kokhba decided to ask simple questions to which the dying man was able to nod or shake his head with his last movements; the murderers were consequently apprehended.

In Hungary, this legend spawned the "Bar Kokhba game", in which one of two players comes up with a word or object, while the other must figure it out by asking questions only to be answered with "yes" or "no". Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic The verb "kibarkochbázni" ("to Bar Kochba out") became a common language verb meaning "retrieving information in an extremely tedious way". [4]

In English speaking countries, this is known as Twenty Questions. Twenty Questions is a spoken parlor game which encourages Deductive reasoning and Creativity.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Texts on Bar Kochba: Bar Kochba's letters", retireved 25 May 2007. The Cave of Letters is a cave located in the Dead Sea area that contained one of the largest caches of ancient documents and personal correspondence ever discovered in the [1]
  2. ^ "Bar Kokhba", Israel Museum:Jerusalem, retrieved 25 May 2007. [2]
  3. ^ G. Boccaccini, Portraits of Middle Judaism in Scholarship and Arts (Turin: Zamorani, 1992).
  4. ^ (Hungarian) kibarkochbázni

Bibliography

External links

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