Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt ( 132 – 136 CE ) , or " mered bar kokhba " , was the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judaea Province against the Roman Empire and the last of the Jewish – Roman wars . The rebellion is also known as The Third Jewish – Roman War or The Third Jewish Revolt , though some historians relate it as Second Judean Revolt , not counting the Kitos War 115 – 117 CE , which had only marginally been fought in Judea . The revolt is considered to be the climax of the Jewish – Roman wars , after which the Jews had become a " devastated " people - their cities were laid waste , over half a million killed and the survivors dispersed through the slave markets of the known world in a clear case of genocide . The revolt erupted as a result of religious and political tensions in Judaea province . Simon bar Kokhba , the commander of the revolt , was acclaimed as a Messiah , a heroic figure who could restore Israel . Initial rebel victories established an independent state of Israel over parts of Judea for over two years , but a Roman army made up of six full legions with auxiliaries and elements from up to six additional legions finally crushed it . The Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in genocide and almost complete depopulation of Judea and is considered to have a much more critical impact on Jews and Judaism than the Great Revolt of Judea of 70 CE . Roman losses are also considered heavy , making it one of the worst campaigns of the Empire . Despite easing persecution of Jews following Hadrian ' s death in 138 CE , the Romans barred Jews from Jerusalem , except to attend it in Tisha B ' Av . Although Jewish Christian s hailed Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba , they were barred from Jerusalem along with the rest of the Jews . The war and its aftermath helped differentiate Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism ( see also Split of early Christianity and Judaism ) . Background . After the failed Great Jewish Revolt in 70 CE , the Roman authorities took measures to suppress the rebellious province of Judea . Instead of a procurator , they installed a praetor as a governor and stationed an entire legion , the X " Fretensis " . The tensions continued to build up in the consequence of the Kitos War , the second large - scale Jewish insurrection in the Eastern Mediterranean , the final stages of which were fought in Judaea . Because the Great Revolt of 70 CE had resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem , the Council at Yavne provided spiritual guidance for the Jewish nation , both in Judea and throughout the Jewish diaspora . According to Seth Swartz two generations after the siege , Judea retained a reasonably large Jewish population . He writes that while it is clear that many Jews were killed , enslaved or died of disease or starvation during the siege it is hard to make more specific judgements . Multiple reasons have been offered for the beginning of the Bar Kokhba revolt . One interpretation is that in 130 CE , Emperor Hadrian visited the ruins of the temple . At first sympathetic towards the Jews , Hadrian promised to rebuild the temple , but the Jews felt betrayed when they found out that his intentions were to build a temple dedicated to Jupiter upon the ruins of the Second Temple . A rabbinic version of this story claims that Hadrian was planning on rebuilding the Temple , but a malevolent Samaritan convinced him not to . An additional legion , the VI " Ferrata " , was stationed in the province to maintain order , and the works commenced in 131 CE after the governor of Judaea , Tineius Rufus , performed the foundation ceremony of Aelia Capitolina , the city ’ s projected new name . " Ploughing up the Temple " was a religious offence that turned many Jews against the Roman authorities . The tensions grew higher when Hadrian abolished circumcision ( " brit milah " ) , which he , a Hellenist , viewed as mutilation . Subsequently , it is known that a Roman coin inscribed " Aelia Capitolina " was issued in 132 , right with the revolt beginnings . Chronology . Revolt begins . The Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva ( alternatively Akiba ) indulged the possibility that Simon Bar Kosiba ( Bar Kokhba ) could be the Jewish messiah , and gave him the surname " Bar Kokhba " meaning " son of a star " in the Aramaic language , from the Star Prophecy verse from Numbers 24 : 17 : " There shall come a star out of Jacob " The Jewish leaders carefully planned the second revolt to avoid numerous mistakes that had plagued the first Great Jewish Revolt sixty years earlier . In 132 , a revolt led by Bar Kokhba quickly spread from Modi ' in across the country , cutting off the Roman garrison in Jerusalem . " The Era of the redemption of Israel " . Simon Bar Kokhba took the title " Nasi Israel " ( prince [ lord , president ] of Israel ) and headed a functional public administration over a mini - state that was virtually independent for two and a half years . The " Era of the redemption of Israel " was announced , contracts were signed and coins were minted in large quantity in silver and copper with corresponding inscriptions ( all were struck over foreign coins ) . Roman reaction . The outbreak and initial success of the rebellion took the Romans by surprise . Hadrian called his general Sextus Julius Severus from Britain , and troops were brought from as far as the Danube . The size of the Roman army amassed against the rebels was much larger than that commanded by Titus sixty years earlier . The struggle lasted for three years before the revolt was brutally crushed in the summer of 135 CE . Roman losses however were very heavy - XXII " Deiotariana " was disbanded after serious losses . In addition , some historians argue that Legio IX Hispana disbandment in the mid - 2nd century could also have been a result of this war . After losing much of their strongholds , Bar Kokhba and the remnants of his army withdrew to the fortress of Betar , which also subsequently came under siege . The Jerusalem Talmud relates that the numbers slain were enormous , that the Romans " went on killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils " . The Talmud also relates that for seventeen years the Romans did not allow the Jews to bury their dead in Betar . Annihilation . According to Cassius Dio , 580 , 000 Jews were killed , and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed . Cassius Dio claimed that " Many Romans , moreover , perished in this war . Therefore , Hadrian , in writing to the Senate , did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors : ' If you and your children are in health , it is well ; I and the army are in health . ' " According to a Rabbinic midrash ( the Ten Martyrs ) , in addition to Bar Kokhba himself the Romans executed ten leading members of the Sanhedrin : the high priest , R . Ishmael ; the president of the Sanhedrin , R . Shimon ben Gamaliel ; R . Akiba ; R . Hanania ben Teradion ; the interpreter of the Sanhedrin , R . Huspith ; R . Eliezer ben Shamua ; R . Hanina ben Hakinai ; the secretary of the Sanhedrin , R . Yeshevav ; R . Yehuda ben Dama ; and R . Yehuda ben Baba . The Rabbinic account describes agonizing tortures : R . Akiba was flayed , R . Ishmael had the skin of his head pulled off slowly , and R . Hanania was burned at a stake , with wet wool held by a Torah scroll wrapped around his body to prolong his death . Aftermath . Immediate consequences . Hadrian attempted to root out Judaism , which he saw as the cause of continuous rebellions . He prohibited the Torah law and the Hebrew calendar , and executed Judaic scholars . The sacred scroll was ceremonially burned on the Temple Mount . At the former Temple sanctuary , he installed two statues , one of Jupiter , another of himself . In an attempt to erase any memory of Judea or Ancient Israel , he wiped the name off the map and replaced it with Syria Palaestina . By destroying association of Jews to Judea and forbidding the practice of Jewish faith , Hadrian aimed to root out a nation that engaged heavy casualties on the Empire . Similarly , he re - established Jerusalem but now as the Roman pagan polis of Aelia Capitolina , and Jews were forbidden from entering it , except on the day of Tisha B ' Av . Yet , Hadrian ' s death in 138 CE marked a significant relief to the surviving Jewish communities . Rabbinic Judaism had already become a portable religion , centered around synagogues , and the Jews themselves kept books and dispersed throughout the Roman world and beyond . Later relations between the Jews and the Roman Empire . Modern historians have come to view the Bar - Kokhba Revolt as being of decisive historic importance . The massive destruction and loss of life occasioned by the revolt has led some scholars to date the beginning of the Jewish diaspora from this date . They note that , unlike the aftermath of the First Jewish – Roman War chronicled by Josephus , the majority of the Jewish population of Judea was either killed , exiled , or sold into slavery after the Bar - Kokhba Revolt , and Jewish religious and political authority was suppressed far more brutally . After the revolt , the Jewish religious center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars . Judea would not be a center of Jewish religious , cultural , or political life again until the modern era , though Jews continued to live there and important religious developments still occurred there . In Galilee , the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the 2nd – 4th centuries . Constantine I allowed Jews to mourn their defeat and humiliation once a year on Tisha B ' Av at the Western Wall . In 351 – 352 CE , the Jews of Galilee launched yet another revolt , provoking once again heavy retribution . Under the Byzantines . In 438 CE , when the Empress Eudocia removed the ban on Jews ' praying at the Temple site , the heads of the Community in Galilee issued a call " to the great and mighty people of the Jews " which began : " Know that the end of the exile of our people has come ! " During the 5th and the 6th centuries , a series of Samaritan insurrections broke out across the Palaestina Prima province . Especially violent were the third and the fourth revolts , which resulted in almost entire annihilation of the Samaritan community . It is likely that the Samaritan Revolt of 556 was joined by the Jewish community , which had also suffered a brutal suppression of Israelite religion . In the belief of restoration to come , the Jews made an alliance with the Persians , who invaded Palaestina Prima in 614 , fought at their side , overwhelmed the Byzantine garrison in Jerusalem , and for five years governed the region as Jewish - Sassanian commonwealth . However , their autonomy was brief : with the withdrawal of Persian forces , Jews surrendered to Byzantine forces in 625 CE and were consequently massacred by them in 629 CE . The Byzantine ( Eastern Roman Empire ) control of the region was finally lost to the Muslim Arab armies in 637 CE , when Umar ibn al - Khattab completed the conquest of Akko . Legacy . In the post - rabbinical era , the Bar - Kokhba Revolt became a symbol of valiant national resistance . The Zionist youth movement Betar took its name from Bar - Kokhba ' s traditional last stronghold , and David Ben - Gurion , Israel ' s first prime minister , took his Hebrew last name from one of Bar - Kokhba ' s generals . The disastrous end of the revolt also occasioned major changes in Jewish religious thought . Messianism was abstracted and spiritualized , and rabbinical political thought became deeply cautious and conservative . The Talmud , for instance , refers to Bar - Kokhba as " Ben - Kusiba " , a derogatory term used to indicate that he was a false Messiah . The deeply ambivalent rabbinical position regarding Messianism , as expressed most famously in the Rambam ' s ( also known as Maimonides ) " Epistle to Yemen " , would seem to have its origins in the attempt to deal with the trauma of a failed Messianic uprising . A popular children ' s song , included in the curriculum of Israeli kindergartens , has the refrain " Bar Kokhba was a Hero / He fought for Liberty " and its words describe Bar Kokhba as being captured , thrown into a lion ' s den but managing to escape riding on the lion ' s back . Sources . The best recognized sources include Cassius Dio , " Roman History " ( book 69 ) and Aelius Spartianus , " Life of Hadrian " ( in the " Augustan History " ) . Jerusalem Talmud contains descriptions of the results of the rebellion , including the Roman executions of Judean leaders . The discovery of the Cave of Letters in the Dead Sea area , which contained letters actually written by Bar Kochba and his followers , has added much new primary source data .