Suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, fall of Betar

Sixty years after the destruction of the Temple, Judea rose up again, under the leadership of Shimon bar Kosiba, whom Rabbi Akiva hailed as "Bar Kokhba," son of the star. The causes lay in Hadrian's founding of a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina, on the ruins of Jerusalem, and in the prohibition of circumcision.

The insurgents held the land for several years, minted coins, and organized an administration whose letters, discovered in the caves of the Judean desert, bear the leader's signature. Hadrian was forced to recall his finest general, Julius Severus, from Britain. The war ended with the siege of Bétar, southwest of Jerusalem, whose fall is commemorated on the 9th of Av. Rabbi Akiva was executed; tradition numbers his death among those of the ten martyrs.

After the victory, the province was renamed Syria-Palaestina, Jews were forbidden access to Jerusalem, and the center of gravity of Jewish life shifted toward the Galilee, and then toward Babylonia.