The Jüdische Turnzeitung. Monatsschrift für die körperliche Hebung der Juden [Jewish Gymnasts' Paper. Monthly Publication for the Physical Improvement of the Jews] was the central organ of the Jewish Gymnasts' Association  Jüdische Turnerschaft, the umbrella organization of national-Jewish sports clubs. In its 1910 March / April issue, an author only identified as “B.”, presumably Hamburg physician and chairman of the local Zionist chapter Max Besser (1877–1941), described the circumstances leading to the founding of a national-Jewish sports club in Hamburg named Bar Kochba.

The ninth Zionist congress, which had taken place in late 1909 / early 1910 in Hamburg, offered a supporting program consisting of a harbor tour, religious services, and a gymnastics exhibition by Jewish athletes at the zoological garden's Ernst-Merck arena, a venue located behind the Dammtor train station.

The gymnastics exhibition attracted a large audience and generated great interest among Hamburg’s Jewish youth to train regularly in a Jewish gymnastics club. Since the existing Jewish gymnastics club, Hamburg Jewish Gymnasts' Association of 1902  Hamburger Jüdische Turnerschaft von 1902 had reservations concerning these potential new members due to their supposed Zionist convictions, a committee chaired by Hamburg philosopher and political economist Ernst Tuch (1872–1922), who had been a longstanding member of Berlin's Jewish sports club Bar Kochba, and Hamburg chemist and businessman Walter Weigert (1883–1952) founded a local chapter of the Berlin Jewish sports club Bar Kochba in Hamburg on March 14, 1910.