> The satraps are: Satrap (dr.-Pers. 𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎱𐎠𐎺𐎠 xšaθrapāvan - guardian of the kingdom; Pehl. šatrap, Pers. šahrbān شهربان) was the head of a satrapy, a ruler in ancient Persia. He was appointed by the king and usually belonged to his kin or the highest nobility. In his territory he was in charge of tax collection, army maintenance, supreme judge and had the right to coin money. > The territory of Palestine, when it was under the Persians, was also divided into satrapies, and from there it went under the rule of satraps, but by jewish satraps. > The satraps are princes of the captivity, who hid themselves after the death of Hezekiah in 1005, and evidently continued to exist, either by direct migration to Constantinople, or they did so later, hiding somewhere else, and strictly guarding the secrecy of their residence. Shaboti comes to the same conclusion: > "From the time of their dispersion,- he writes, the jews have constantly constituted a distinct nation from the other peoples, having their supreme leaders and subordinate administrators. This authority was so organised that it could act either overtly or covertly, according to circumstances. From the destruction of Jerusalem until our time the jews have lived and been governed for the most part as a vast secret society. They had already been accustomed to this kind of secret government before their dispersion, for the sect of the "zealots," which were so numerous in Judea, and penetrated into all classes of the population, was only a vast political community, carefully concealed under the appearance of a supposedly purely religious unity. Under the pretext of increased zeal for the Law of Moses, its real aim was to unite all jews in a common effort against the Romans. > The revolts of the sixties and seventies were organised by this sect." > Evidence confirming the existence of a secret jewish government can be found in many other sources. > The German writer Kübler, one of the coryphaeus of the school of publicist-philosophers, wrote in 1515: > "The jews are a politico-religious sect under the strict theocratic despotism of the rabbis. They are not only closely united among themselves by known religious dogmas, they constitute a completely closed succession-heritage community. The jews, in their own words, form a distinct nation throughout the world. Their political and religious institutions, ideas and customs penetrate so deeply and under so many different kinds into their social life that the Israelite subjects of the Christian states constitute in many essential respects a "state within a state." [Source](https://gab.com/NelaVesely/posts/112009208061968191)