Mishpocha

by Masada Zealot

Jewish Attempts to Retake Israel

Many people have the impression that before 1948 CE, the last Jewish attempt to retake Israel was "The Second Revolt" of 132 - 135 CE. This however, was not the last time we Jews tried to regain control of our homeland. There was infact an attempt to take back Israel in almost every century since the Second Revolt, however, most of these attempts have been relegated to the area of "false messiahs" in the Jewish history books. False messiahs are somewhat of an embarrassment so it is hard to find a comprehensive list of all the attempts we made over the centuries since 135 CE. Bar Kochba himself was also branded a false messiah.

For the Jewish people, it was difficult to separate any attempt to take back control of the Holy Land from religion. As a highly moral religion, Jews believed that Israel must have been lost due to sin, and once redeemed, G-d would send his Messiah to lead us back to into Israel. All those who attempted to take back Israel were therefore seen as claiming to be the Messiah, whether they had claimed so or not. All those who failed were branded false messiahs because the messiah could not fail.

Attempts from the diasporah to retake Israel were bound to fail in most cases because Jews were a persecuted and scattered people. Jews have constantly lived in Israel since the time of Joshua, however, between the Second Revolt and 1948 CE, we were oppressed and taxed heavilly by powerful Occupying Nations so that uprisings also carried great difficulties. Jews living outside Israel were often barred from returning by which ever foreign nation was in control at the time. While Jews always had the desire to return and retake control of our homeland, we did not have the resources. Still, this never stopped us from trying.

The first attempt I found recorded after the Second Revolt was The Gallus Revolt in Israel of 351CE. The Roman records mentioned that this was not unique and that the Jews were a rebellious people. I can therefore only assume that the Bar Kochba revolt was not the end of internal uprisings against the Romans.

Outside of Israel, there have been far more recorded attempts. Although there is almost one per century, and sometimes a few for a particular century, I found many more that I could not list here for lack of the name of the leader and other information I felt necessary. The following are listed by the year and name of the leader only:

448CE - Moses of Crete
530 CE - Julian of Canaan
700 CE - Abu Issa of Persia
724 CE - Serenus of Spain - (possibly successful for a short while?)
832 CE - Moses "Risen from the Dead"
1095 CE - Moses Al Dari
1137 CE- David of Moravia
1137 CE - El David of the Euphrates
1147 CE - David Alroy "king of the Jews of Babylon"
1240 CE - Abraham of Abulfia "The prophet of Avilla"
1250 CE - Alroy of Azerbijan
1500 CE - Asher Lamlin
1523 CE - David Reubeni - "Prince of the Lost Tribes"
1530 CE - Solomon Molko
1666 CE - Shabtai Zevi
1759 CE - Jacob Frank

In 1880 CE, we saw the beginings of the Zionist movement which was ultimately successful in 1948 CE. For those who mistakenly believe that the Jews suddenly decided that they wanted Israel in 1880, I believe I have given evidence to the contrary. Jews never gave up trying to regain control Israel even though the effort itself took 1813 years and suffered many embarrasing failures along the way.