The outcome of a brutal war, which took place 1,885 years ago,
continues to reverberate in the Near East today. It is a tale
largely unknown outside Israel, and yet it helps explain why the
region continues to be engulfed by strife. "As a historian I
learned about the Bar Kokhba War, but the explanations for why and
how it happened seemed confused," said historian and author Lindsay
Powell. "As with King Arthur, fact and myth have become muddled. To
establish the truth, I travelled across three continents. BAR
KOKHBA: The Jew Who Defied Hadrian and Challenged the Might of Rome
is the result." This amazing and consequential story involves an
epic struggle between the two strong-willed leaders over who would
rule a nation. One protagonist was Hadrian, the cosmopolitan ruler
of the vast Roman Empire, then at its zenith, who some regarded as
divine. He is best known today for the famous wall he built in
northern Britain. The other was Shim'on, a Jewish military leader
in a district of a minor province; some believed him to be the
'King Messiah' after sage Rabbi Akiba allegedly saw him fulfilling
biblical prophecy and named him 'Bar Kokhba' ('Son of a Star'). It
is also the tale of the clash of two ancient cultures. One was the
conqueror, seeking to maintain control of its hard-won dominion
they called Judaea; the other was the conquered, seeking to break
free and establish a new nation. Shim'on called his new country
Israel. Several causes for the war have been suggested, such as
bans on circumcision or studying Torah which Powell evaluates in
his book. Most likely it was the decision by Hadrian to rebuild
then ruined Jerusalem as a pagan city for retired Roman soldiers.
He called it Aelia Capitolina after his own family and the triad of
Roman gods whose shrine may have been erected over the remains of
the Second Temple. It may or may not have been Hadrian's intention,
but the Jews took it as a direct insult. During the ensuing
conflict - called the 'Second Jewish War' (AD 132-136) - the highly
motivated Jewish militia sorely tested the highly trained - and
normally invincible - professional Roman army. Powell said:
"Amazingly, the Jewish rebels withstood the Roman onslaught for
three-and-a-half years. They established an independent nation with
its own administration led by Shim'on as its president (nasi). They
minted their own coins by overstriking Roman coins with Jewish
iconography, cheerfully obliterating the image of the emperor and
pagan gods with every strike of the hammer." Found in caves in the
Judaean Desert in the 1950s and 1960s, letters from Shim'on to his
lieutenants survive revealing how deeply involved he was in
day-to-day actions, and his increasing frustration with their
laziness. For reasons Powell explains in his book, the Jews
ultimately lost. In retribution, Hadrian expelled the Jews from
Judea and barred them from entering Aelia Capitolina and its holy
sites. He even changed the name of the Roman province to Syria
Palaestina - the origin of Palestine. "The outcome of that David
and Goliath contest was of great consequence, both for the people
of Judaea and for Judaism itself," said Powell. "Centuries of
bloodshed followed." In death, Bar Kokhba became a legend. Over the
ages, this flawed rebel with a cause become a hero for the
increasingly persecuted Jews in the Diaspora longing to found a new
Jewish homeland. Across Europe in the early twentieth century,
there were athletic teams competing in sports events under the
moniker 'Bar Kochba' as part of a movement to create the image of
the 'Muscular Jew'. The last games were held in Berlin in 1936,
just two years before Kristallnacht. Eric H. Cline, Professor of
Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Anthropology, George
Washington University, writes in the foreword of the book: "There
are a very limited number of people whose life, and death, still
impact other centuries after they have shuffled off this mortal
coil. There are fewer still who inspire entire movements, and
migrations, such as the return to what is now modern Israel by the
Zionists, after that same length of time." In the interwar years in
Palestine, armed Jewish resistance groups championed Bar Kokhba as
a figure of inspiration in their own struggle against the British
and Palestinian Arabs to establish a new State of Israel; it
finally came into being in 1948. Today modern Israelis still
celebrate Bar Kokhba with bonfires and songs on the annual Lag
B'Omer holiday. In researching his book, Powell went on a journey
stretching from Hollywood to London, Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and
Caesarea, and Herodium to Ein Gedi. He drew upon archaeology, art,
coins, inscriptions, militaria, as well as secular and religious
documents, to produce a compelling and complete account of the
people and events at a crucial time in world history. Commenting on
the new book, Cline said: "Let it be said that Powell's researches
have resulted in an enthralling journey through history. It is a
marvelous search for the man behind the myth, which is well worth
reading. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did."
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