Last month, my family took a trip to Italy. We had never been there before, and we had a wonderful time.  It was very hot, and the tourist sites were very crowded, but of course we made it to the obligatory tourist sites in Rome, the most well-known being the Colosseum.

My son was excited to see where the gladiators used to fight, and to imagine the scenes that took place there 2000 years ago.  However, I did not know until I got there that the Colosseum was built by the emperor Vespasian to celebrate the defeat of Judea, the sacking of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash.  It was funded by loot taken from that war, and was built by many Jewish slaves captured during the conquest and taken into exile.  Although it sounds like something you might have learned in Yeshiva, it is well attested in the explanatory signs at the site itself.

This certainly complicated the feeling of awe at seeing this feat and ancient engineering.  After leaving the site, we walked the short distance to the Arch of Titus,........

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