Politics

Barry Strauss | 9.15.2025 8:01 AM

While writing my new book, Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire (Simon & Schuster, 2025), I asked myself if anything good can come from a failed revolt. The Jews of the Roman empire experienced not one but three major failed revolts as well as several minor ones. The three are the Great Revolt or Jewish War (66-70), which was followed by the most famous postscript in military history, Masada (74); the Diaspora Revolt or Kitos War (116-117) and the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-136). Each one led to disaster for the rebels and for the Jewish people.

The Great Revolt caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple at the hands of Rome as well as the death, deportation or enslavement of well over a hundred thousand Jews. It also led the Romans for centuries to stigmatize all Jews in the empire by making them pay a special tax (the "Jewish Fund") to the chief pagan god of Rome, Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. No other rebel nation in the empire ever suffered a similar humiliation.

The Diaspora Revolt led to the ethnic cleansing of the large Jewish populations of Libya, Cyprus, and Egypt—whose capital city,........

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