For the week ending 21 November 2009 / 3 Kislev 5770
The Judean Hills and the Bar Kochba Rebellion
The theory of historians that Jews took refuge in the Judean hills during the Bar Kochba rebellion received some support from a recent archeological discovery.
In a 20-meter-deep cave, archeologists from Hebrew and Bar Ilan Universities found 120 gold, silver and bronze coins believed to have been used by Jewish refugees during that rebellion in 132-135 CE. Most of these coins were originally Roman but the Jewish fighters impressed them with their own insignia and dated them for each year of the rebellion.
