traNSLatioN aND coNqueSt • 219der could be understood to imply, in modern times, a semiautonomous
Jewish community under the Ottomans, the precedent of the Macca-
bees would suggest something quite different and, from the arab read-
er’s perspective, far more insidious.
Moyal is even more explicit in his admiration of yet another his-
torical advocate of the “full independence” of the “Israelite nation,”
namely, Bar Kokhba. In his introductory rendition of the transmis-
sion of the Jewish Oral Law and of Israelite history, Moyal ultimately
reaches rabban Gamaliel. among the “famous contemporaries” of rab-
ban Gamaliel was
rabbi akiba, the great teacher, leader of the famous nationalist
party [al- ḥizb al- waṭanī ash- shahīr], who had twenty- four thou-
sand rebels [under his control]. he created an army with them
and placed them under the leadership of Bar Kokhba, whom Jo-
sephus, the biased historian [al- muʾarrikh al- muḥābī], names Bar
Koziba, that is, the son of the liar. this was a shameful appella-
tion from which the truth exonerates him. this Bar Kokhba was
among the greatest leaders. . . . he rose up against the roman
conquerors who had subjugated Judea after they conquered Jeru-
salem and burned the temple.^133this passage is one in which Moyal’s voice (or, perhaps, that of an
unnamed text on which he chose to rely) is most clearly discernible
in the course of his historical exposition. here Moyal unequivocally
affirms his respect for Bar Kokhba and his efforts to achieve israelite
independence. Moyal further describes “Bar Kokhba and his brave men
[rijāluhu ash- shujʿān]” who fought the roman armies in “heroic wars”
in which they attempted “to restore the independence of their nation
[ummatihim], emulating the Maccabees who preceded them.”^134 Such
overt approval for Bar Kokhba, imagined as a militant nationalist hero,
is more difficult to mesh with a model of internal autonomy in an ot-
toman framework.
however, in his approval of rabbi akiba’s national party, Moyal
may have had a more recent example in mind, suggesting a far more
positive approach to the Ottoman empire. rabbi akiba, according to
Moyal, was the leader of the national (or nationalist)^135 party (al- ḥizb
al- waṭanī) of the israelites. having spent many years in egypt, Moyal
could not have written these words without thinking of political parties
(^133) ibid., 36.
(^134) ibid., 36
(^135) again, it is difficult to translate this term precisely. it may also be taken as “patri-
otic.” See tauber, The Emergence of the Arab Movements, 124.