Bar Kochba Berlin (full name: Jüdischer Turnverein Bar Kochba Berlin, JTV) was the first Jewish gymnastics club founded under the Second German Empire. It shaped the development of the Jewish physical culture movement throughout Europe prior to World War I. Its foundation came primarily in reaction to the exclusion of Jewish gymnasts from German clubs. There was also a guiding idea of Jews as a collective in their own right. The concept promoted by Bar Kochba Berlin entailed contradicting antis…