Politics
Jerusalem was still in ruins from the First Jewish-Roman War in 70 AD. Josephus, a contemporary, reports that "Jerusalem ... was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation."
When the Roman Emperor Hadrian vowed to rebuild Jerusalem from the wreckage in 130 AD, he considered reconstructing Jerusalem as a gift for the Jewish people. The Jews awaited with hope, but then after Hadrian visited Jerusalem, he decided to rebuild the city as a Roman colony which would be inhabited by his legionnaires. Hadrian's new plans included temples to the major regional deities, and certain Roman gods, in particular Jupiter Capitolinus. Jews secretly started putting aside arms from the Roman munitions workshops; soon after, a revolt broke out under Simeon ben Kosiba. This Bar Kokhba revolt, which the Romans managed to suppress, enraged Hadrian, and he came to be determined to erase Judaism from the province. Circumcision was forbidden, Iudaea province was renamed Syria Palaestina and Jews (formally all circumcised men, Arabs too) were banned from entering the city on pain of death.
Read more about this topic: Aelia Capitolina
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country—and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who’s out in front of nobody?... Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)