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THE KITOS WAR: JEWISH COURAGE FROM CYRENE TO WASHINGTON — STRENGTH, SURVIVAL, AND SPIRIT AGAINST TYRANNY ACROSS THE AGES IN THE FACE OF EMPIRES
Dedication
To my beloved mother, Blanche Levine Segal (1926–2025) :A woman of valor, grace, and grit.
This work is dedicated to the memory of my beloved mother Blanche Levine Segal (1926–2025), whose life inspires scholarship, reflection, and love of Torah and family. May her memory continue to be a blessing.
Her strength, laughter, and love of learning live in every page of this work.
From her I learned compassion, faith, and the courage to stand upright in a world that too often bends.
This teaching, then, is not about war alone. It is about the enduring Jewish refusal to surrender dignity. It is about emunah, faith , as resistance, about moral courage as the truest weapon. And so, I dedicate this reflection to her memory, and to every soul who believes that goodness itself is an act of rebellion.
May this study honor her life, her humor, and her quiet strength , a spirit that, like our people, has never been conquered.
By Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
ABSTRACT SUMMARY: Between 115 and 117 CE a series of violent uprisings broke out simultaneously across the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia: in Cyrenaica (North Africa), Cyprus, Alexandria (Egypt), and parts of Mesopotamia, with some later disturbances (or at least Roman military operations) touching Judea. Ancient narrative sources (principally Cassius Dio and Eusebius) present a picture of decentralized, often chaotic Jewish-led revolts in the Diaspora that resulted in catastrophic communal losses and brutal Roman suppression; modern scholarship emphasizes local triggers plus the larger context of Trajan's eastern wars. The revolt is commonly called the Diaspora Revolt or Kitos War and is conventionally dated to Trajan's final years and Hadrian's accession (115–117 CE). It was not a single rebellion, but a chain of uprisings by Jews across the Mediterranean world. They rose against local Roman governors, soldiers, and citizens who had long treated them as lesser beings, stripping them of rights, dignity, and even their ancestral lands.
THE FORGOTTEN REVOLT [this and the rest is in the word document attached.]
''This conflict—ferocious, tragic, and astonishing in its scope—shows that Jewish courage did not vanish after Jerusalem fell. It also reminds us that the stereotype of the "meek diaspora Jew" is a distortion of both history and spirit.''
'' The Kitos War, and every struggle since, teaches that faith is not retreat — it is resistance.''
''For too long, European caricatures, and later, some of our own self-criticism, portrayed Jews as weak, submissive, and unfit for battle.''
''The Kitos War reminds us that Jewish courage was never passive — it was principled, sacrificial, and eternal.''
