Simon bar Kokhba
Due to the failure of the earlier Great Jewish Revolt in the eastern Roman provinces, Bar Kokhba's support was mostly limited to the Roman province of Judea. Despite some initial successes, his revolt was brutally crushed by Emperor Hadrian: Bar Kokhba and his followers were killed in a dramatic last stand at the fortress of Betar, southwest of Jerusalem, and many of his supporters were executed, among them Rabbi Akiva. Nevertheless, it was a costly victory for Rome, and the generals, when reporting to the Senate, did not begin with the customary greeting: "I and my troops are well." 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. Hadrian renamed Provincia Iudaea as Provincia Syria Palaestina.
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.
