Upon arriving in Egypt July 1896, Joseph Marco Barukh founded a Zionist circle with two local businessmen: Jacques Harmalin and Joseph Leibovitch.[4] After some months, it became the Bar Kokhba Society, established with 30 founding members.[4]
Its elected council was led by Jacques Harmalin and it was composed entirely of Ashkenazi Jews of Egypt's middle and lower classes.[1] Its early attempts to recruit non-Ashkenazi members were unsuccessful.[1] In November 1900, it opened a Zionist school in which 100 students learned Hebrew in addition to the curriculum set by the Egyptian government.[1] It also established Bene Zion, a youth group for those at least 15 years old.[1] Although the school closed in the summer of 1902 for financial reasons, the membership of Bar Kokhba increased from 60 in 1900 to 300 members in 1901, including Arabic-speaking and Ladino-speaking Jews.[1] The Bar Kokhba Society also sold the Zionist shekel, and at its height it had branches in Alexandria, Tanta, Mansura, and Suez.[1] Members of the branch in Alexandria were mostly middle-class Sephardim, and the branch was supported by the Chief Rabbi of Alexandria.[1]
In 1901, the Bar Kokhba Society encouraged Egyptian Jews to seek Italian or British nationality.[5]
According to the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, the Bar Kokhba Society lasted until 1904.[1] According to Bat Ye'or (Gisèle Littman), the Bar Kokhba Society was dissolved in 1906, "destroyed by internal wranglings".[6]