History of the Jews in the Roman Empire

The history of the Jews in the Roman Empire (

Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem and its surroundings by 63 BCE. The Romans deposed the ruling Hasmonean dynasty of Judaea (in power from c. 140 BCE) and the Roman Senate declared Herod the Great "King of the Jews" in c. 40 BCE. Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea became the Roman province of Judaea in 6 CE. Jewish–Roman tensions resulted in several Jewish–Roman wars between the years 66 and 135 CE, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and the institution of the Jewish Tax in 70 (those who paid the tax were exempt from the obligation of making sacrifices to the Roman imperial cult).

In 313, Constantine and

According to the article on Rome in The Jewish Encyclopedia,^[5]

Jews have lived in Rome for over 2,000 years, longer than in any other European city. They originally went there from Alexandria, drawn by the lively commercial intercourse between those two cities. They may even have established a community there as early as the second pre-Christian century, for in the year 139 BCE, the pretor Hispanus issued a decree expelling all Jews who were not Roman citizens.

The Jewish Encyclopedia connects the two civil wars raging during the last decades of the first century BCE,

... the Jewish community in Rome grew very rapidly. The Jews who were taken to Rome as prisoners were either ransomed by their coreligionists or set free by their Roman masters, who found their peculiar custom obnoxious. They settled as traders on the right bank of the Tiber, and thus originated the Jewish quarter in Rome.

Even before Rome annexed Judea as a province, the Romans had interacted with Jews from their diasporas settled in Rome for a century and a half. Many cities of the Roman provinces in the eastern Mediterranean contained very large Jewish communities, dispersed from the time of the sixth century BCE.^[6]

Rome's involvement in the

In the Greek cities in the east of the Roman empire, tensions often arose between the Greek and Jewish populations. Writing around 90 CE, the Jewish author Josephus cited decrees by Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Augustus and Claudius, endowing Jewish communities with a number of rights.[9] Central privileges included the right to be exempted from polis religious rituals and the permission "to follow their ancestral laws, customs and religion". Jews were also exempted from military service and the provision of Roman troops.^[10] Contrary to what Josephus wants his readers to believe, the Jews did not have the status of religio licita (permitted religion) as this status did not exist in the Roman empire, nor were all Roman decrees concerning the Jews positive. Instead, the regulations were made as a response to individual requests to the emperor. The decrees were deployed by Josephus "as instruments in an ongoing political struggle for status".^[11]

Because of their one-sided viewpoint, the authenticity of the decrees has been questioned many times, but they are now thought to be largely authentic.^{[12][13][11][14]} Still, Josephus gave only one side of the story by leaving out negative decisions and pretending that the rulings were universal.^[15] This way, he carried out an ideological message showing that the Romans allowed the Jews to carry out their own customs and rituals; the Jews were protected in the past and were still protected by these decisions in his own time.

The

In 66 CE, the

Jews continued to live in their land in significant numbers, the Kitos War of 115–117 notwithstanding, until Julius Severus ravaged Judea while putting down the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136. 985 villages were destroyed and most of the Jewish population of central Judaea was essentially wiped out – killed, sold into slavery, or forced to flee.^[18] Banished from Jerusalem, which was renamed Aelia Capitolina, the Jewish population now centered on Galilee,^[19] initially at Yavneh.

After the

A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple, and their dwelling in other countries for the most part was not a result of compulsory dislocation.^[23] Before the middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Egypt, Crete and Cyrenaica, and in Rome itself;^[24] after the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, when the Hasmonean kingdom became a protectorate of Rome, emigration intensified. Many Jews became citizens of other parts of the Roman Empire. Josephus, the book of Acts in the New Testament, as well as other Pauline texts, make frequent reference to the large populations of Hellenised Jews in the cities of the Roman world. It is commonly claimed that the diaspora began with Rome's twofold crushing of Jewish national aspirations. David Aberbach, for one, has argued that much of the European Jewish diaspora, by which he means exile or voluntary migration, originated with the Jewish wars which occurred between 66 and 135 CE.^[25]: 224 Martin Goodman states that it is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast.^[26] This widespread popular belief holds that there was a sudden expulsion of Jews from Judea/Syria Palaestina and that this was crucial for the establishment of the diaspora.^[27] Israel Bartal contends that Shlomo Sand is incorrect in ascribing this view to most Jewish study scholars,^[28] instead arguing that this view is negligible among serious Jewish study scholars.^[29] These scholars argue that the growth of diaspora Jewish communities was a gradual process that occurred over the centuries, starting with the Assyrian destruction of Israel, the Babylonian destruction of Judah, the Roman destruction of Judea, and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. After the revolt, the Jewish religious and cultural center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars. For the generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history.^[30] Following the Bar Kokhba revolt Jews were reduced to a completely diaspora people.^[31]

Erich S. Gruen maintains that focusing on the destruction of the Temple misses the point that already before this, the diaspora was well established. Compulsory dislocation of people cannot explain more than a fraction of the eventual diaspora.^[32] Avrum Ehrlich also states that already well before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Israel.^[33] Jonathan Adelman estimated that around 60% of Jews lived in the diaspora during the Second Temple period.^[34] Of critical importance to the reshaping of Jewish tradition from the Temple-based religion to the traditions of the Diaspora was the development of the interpretations of the Torah found in the Mishnah and Talmud.

Late Roman period

In spite of the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jews remained in the land of Israel in significant numbers. The Jews who remained there went through numerous experiences and armed conflicts against consecutive occupiers of the Land. Some of the most famous and important Jewish texts were composed in Israeli cities at this time. The completion of the Mishnah is a prominent example.

In this period the