Movies - Simon bar Kokhba

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Simon bar Kokhba

	Movies - Simon bar Kokhba

Simon bar Kokhba (also commonly transliterated Kochba) was a Jewish military leader who led Bar Kokhba's revolt against the Romans in 132 CE, establishing an independent state of Israel which he ruled for three years as Nasi ("prince," or "president"). His state was conquered by the Romans in 135 CE following a two-year war. Originally named Simon Bar Koziba, he was given the name Bar Kokhba (Aramaic for "Son of a Star", referring to , "A star has shot off Jacob") by his contemporary, the Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva, who contemplated the possibility that Bar Kochba could be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. (Some have considered Kozeba, meaning "deceiver", to also be a rabbinic nickname for the rebel.)

Second Jewish revolt

Despite the devastation wrought by the Romans during the First Jewish-Roman War which left the population and countryside in ruins, another Jewish rebellion took place 60 years later that established the last Jewish Monarchy in Judea, which lasted for three years. The war began very poorly for the Romans who faced a completely unified Jewish force. The annihilation of a complete Roman legion with auxiliaries resulted in the Romans commiting no less than twelve legions to retake the rebellious province. Being outnumbered and taking heavy casualties, the Romans refused to engage their army 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. Bar-Kokhba took up refuge in the fortress of Betar. The Romans eventually captured it and killed all the defenders.

After Bar Kokhba's defeat, Jerusalem was razed, Jews were forbidden to live there, and a new Roman city, Aelia Capitolina, was built in its place. This was a costly victory for Rome, and general Hadrian, when reporting to the Roman Senate, did not begin with the customary greeting: "I and my army are well", and refused a triumphant entrance, the only recorded instance in history where this was the case. Upon becoming the Emperor, Hadrian renamed the province of Judaea as Syria Palaestina, named for the Philistines, in order to humiliate the Jewish population by naming it after their ancient enemies. The name persists to this day as Palestine.

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. These letters can now be seen at the Israel Museum.

Bar Kokhba in the arts

Bar Kokhba was the subject of an operetta, Bar Kokhba, written by Abraham Goldfaden some time between 1883 and 1885. It was written in the wake of the pogroms following the 1881 assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia as the tide turned against Jewish emancipation. Another operetta on the subject of Bar Kokhba was written by the Russian-Jewish emigre composer Yaacov Bilansky Levanon in Palestine in the 1920s.

Bar Kokhba, Simon Bar Kokhba, Simon Bar Kokhba, Simon Bar Kokhba, Simon

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Simon bar Kokhba ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Simon bar Kokhba; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay