(died &AD; 135) Leader of an unsuccessful Jewish revolt against Roman rule in Palestine. In 131 Hadrian forbade circumcision and built a temple to Jupiter on the ruins of the Temple of Jerusalem. The Jews rebelled in 132, led by Simeon bar Kosba, who, according to one story, was hailed as a messiah by Akiba ben Joseph.
He was called Bar Kokhba (“Son of the Star”), a messianic allusion drawn from the book of Numbers. His army captured Aelia and inflicted heavy casualties, but Hadrian visited the battlefield and summoned reinforcements, and the Romans retook Jerusalem. Bar Kokhba was killed at Betar in 135, and the remnant of the Jewish army was soon crushed, with total Jewish losses, according to the 3rd-century Roman historian Dio Cassius, numbering 580,000. Surviving Jews were exiled and barred from Jerusalem.
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