The Bar Kokhva War: The Last Stand (132-136 A.D.)

In all the vast reaches of the Roman Empire, perhaps no nation was as much a thorn in the side of Rome as the Jews. While other nations agreed to incorporate worship of the Roman Caesar into their existing pantheon of gods, the Jews adhered to an unrelenting monotheism and violently opposed any monuments that hinted at idolatry.

The powder keg of violence at last exploded during the reign of Emperor Titus, who laid waste to Jerusalem and the Second Temple after a bitter war in 70 A.D. Yet even after a destruction that seemed complete, sparks of defiance still abounded in Judea.  And sixty years later, when Roman Emperor Hadrian outlawed the practice of Judaism, the sparks became a wildfire. The emperor forbade circumcision, the ordination of rabbis and the learning of the Torah, among other prohibitions. The Jews set out to revolt.

But they had learned their lesson from the previous war: this rebellion was organized with careful preparation. At its head was Simon bar Koseba, or “Bar Kokhva” as he came to be called, a name that means “star.” Some of the leading rabbis of the period viewed him as the messiah, and the battle as the final war that would lead to redemption. Bar Kokhva represented the last hope of Judean independence from Rome—and as such, the last hope for Jerusalem as a Jewish-ruled city.

.Very little is known about Bar Kokhva the man, but his historical impact was immense. A born leader, Bar Kokhva’s iron will and ruthless training techniques became legendary.  One legend tells that his recruits had to prove their resilience by cutting off their own fingers. Yet another story is that he trained his men by ordering them to uproot cedar trees with their bare hands while galloping on horseback. The truth behind the myths is that Bar Kokhva’s army was so formidable that Hadrian was very nearly defeated.

Bar Kokhva led hundreds of thousands of men who captured 985 towns in Judea from the Romans, including Jerusalem. But ever since the Romans had destroyed the walls of Jerusalem, the city was indefensible. Hadrian sent in one of his best generals, Julius Severus, and the rebel army was at last fully crushed. Bar Kokhva himself was finally killed after a protracted siege of the town of Bethar.

Though the Romans won the war, their casualties were so devastating that Hadrian was unable to tell the Senate the customary statement, “I am well and my army is well.”

Bar Kokhva’s defeat carried apocalyptic symbolism for the Jews: he had represented their last hope against Rome. His death was the death of their dream of a liberated Jerusalem.  The aftermath of his defeat plunged Judea and the capital city of Jerusalem into the deepest and most thorough devastation they had ever known.

Following the war, Hadrian was once again free to exercise his distaste for the Jewish religion. He decided to martyr ten of the most important rabbis of the period, as punishment for the sale of the Biblical figure Joseph into slavery by his ten brothers. The exotic cruelty of Hadrian’s tortures of these men was diabolical in its inventiveness. One of the most horrific of these tortures was suggested by none other than Hadrian’s daughter, who desired the flayed skin of one of the rabbis for herself.