ABSTRACT
Bar Kokhba took up arms against Roman troops and Roman efforts to destroy Jewish culture in the Middle East and is remembered in Jewish history as one of its greatest martyrs. In 132, Bar Kokhba rose against the Romans specifically because in 131 the Roman emperor Hadrian had decreed a Hellenization of Judea in order to destroy Jewish culture and its tendency to independence. Bar Kokhba's rebellion effectively ended any hopes of Jewish political dominance of Judea during the Roman era but reinforced an already indomitable cultural sensibility that had maintained Jewish civilization in the face of systematic persecution. Bar Kokhba's failed revolt and the related Roman oppression of Jews would seem to have spelled the doom of Jewish culture. However, with a cultural identity reinforced by the brutal treatment they had received at the hands of the Romans, the remaining Jews maintained a separate identity while accommodating themselves to the laws of the lands in which they lived.
