Read the first part of the article at this link: https://jnews.az/en/the-jerusalem-question-history-religion-and-identity/
Read the second part of the article at this link: https://jnews.az/en/jerusalem-problem-history-religion-identity-part-2/
At the same time, violence and persecution against Jews increased in Damascus and Alexandria. Thousands of Jews lost their lives. Against the backdrop of these events, some Jewish scholars and religious leaders advocated for the necessity of making peace with Rome. They believed that Rome would eventually destroy Jerusalem and leave the Jewish people facing a severe catastrophe.
However, the Zealots, one of the radical nationalist groups, were in favor of continuing the struggle. They had sworn to fight to the end and destroyed thousands of soldiers by attacking the Roman forces approaching Jerusalem.
Rome’s response was not delayed. The Empire sent a large army under the command of the experienced general Vespasian. The Roman legions advanced toward Jerusalem, destroying the villages and towns they encountered.
The Jews, in turn, engaged in a life-or-death struggle to protect the holy city. Some of the most famous battles of this period took place at the fortresses of Gamla and Masada. According to legends, 5,000 Jews, seeing that the fall of Gamla was inevitable, threw themselves off a cliff rather than surrender to Roman soldiers.
Finally, in 70 A.D., Roman troops besieged Jerusalem. The Romans knew well that the fall of Jerusalem would deal a heavy blow to the national and religious life of the Jewish people. Because Jerusalem was not just a city, but the spiritual center of Judaism and the Jewish people. While the war was ongoing, Yohanan ben Zakkay, one of the Jewish religious scholars, prepared a plan. Realizing that it was impossible to prevent the approaching catastrophe, Yohanan ben Zakkay wanted to at least save the future of the Jewish religion and scholarship.
According to legend, he had himself brought to the Roman commander Vespasian in a coffin, pretending to be dead. Appearing before Vespasian, Yohanan ben Zakkay greeted him as the future emperor. Vespasian, considering these words an insult, wanted to order his execution. However, Yohanan ben Zakkay insistently stated that such a great city as Jerusalem could only be conquered by a future Roman ruler.
During this conversation, news arrived from Rome that the emperor had died and Vespasian had been declared the new emperor. Influenced by this event, Vespasian agreed to fulfill one wish of Yohanan ben Zakkay.
Yohanan ben Zakkay did not ask for the salvation of Jerusalem, but for the protection of Torah scholars and Jewish sages. He understood that saving the city and the Temple was no longer possible. The Romans would surely win and demonstrate their power to the whole world. However, if the spiritual and religious heritage of the Jewish people were preserved, the people could rise again in the future.
Vespasian accepted his request and allowed a group of Torah scholars to leave Jerusalem. It was this decision that played an important role in the continuation of Jewish religious tradition and the educational system in later periods.
Meanwhile, because Vespasian was declared emperor, he returned to Rome and entrusted the siege of Jerusalem to his son Titus.
Finally, Roman troops entered Jerusalem. A large part of the city’s residents were put to the sword. In 70 A.D., on the ninth day of the month of Av according to the Jewish calendar, the Temple was burned. Interestingly, according to Jewish tradition, the First Temple was also destroyed on the same day.
Before the Temple was burned, the valuable items inside it were taken to Rome. Thus, Jerusalem was occupied and the Bet HaMikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed.
After the fall of the city, approximately one thousand Jews took refuge in the fortress of Masada. Located near the Dead Sea, this fortress resisted Roman troops for three years. However, in 73 A.D., Masada was also captured by the Romans.
According to Jewish legends, the defenders of the fortress chose death over falling into captivity. They first killed their families, and then each other. Finally, the last remaining person committed suicide. In their view, life without Jerusalem and without freedom had no meaning.
After the fall of Masada, the Roman Empire declared that the rebellion had been completely suppressed. Although hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their lives, a significant number of Jews were still living in Jerusalem and the lands of Israel.
To demonstrate its victory, the Roman authorities put into circulation coins with an image of a weeping woman and the words «Judea Capta» («Judea has been conquered»). These coins became a symbol of Rome’s victory over the Jews.
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Jerusalem would never be the same again. The Romans continued their harsh policies against the Jews. A temple dedicated to Jupiter was planned to be built on the site of the destroyed Temple. This was perceived as a great insult by the Jews.
As a result, the Roman authorities faced another major rebellion. In 132 A.D., under the leadership of Simon Bar Kokhba, the Jews rose up again. In the first stage of the rebellion, they succeeded in removing the Romans from Jerusalem and some holy lands, and even minted their own coins as a symbol of independence.
This event was an unprecedented challenge in Roman history. The Roman Empire could not allow such a rebellion to succeed. Emperor Hadrian sent large military forces to Judea one after another to suppress the rebellion. Finally, the Roman Empire gathered an unprecedented military force to suppress the rebellion. In the final stage of the war, twelve legions, which made up about half of the Roman army, were sent to Judea. This was more than three times the forces sent to suppress the Great Jewish Revolt about 65 years earlier. At the head of this large army stood the Roman general Julius Severus.
The war was extremely destructive. Hundreds of settlements were destroyed, and hundreds of Jewish villages were razed to the ground. The exact number of deaths resulting from famine, disease, and the disasters created by the war is unknown. A large part of the province of Judea had been turned into ruins.
Gradually, the course of the war turned in favor of the Roman Empire. Bar Kokhba’s last stronghold was the city of Betar, located southwest of Jerusalem. After fierce battles, the city fell on the 9th of Av, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar.
Following the defeat, angry Roman soldiers did not allow the burial of the fallen Jews for a long time. The bodies remained in the open air, and this event left a deep mark on Jewish memory.
The Roman Empire was already tired of the Jews. The rebellions that lasted for many years had caused the empire great human and material losses. Emperor Hadrian came to the conclusion that the only way to prevent future rebellions was to separate the Jews from their homeland.
No other people had shown as consistent and long-term resistance against Rome as the Jews. However, the price of this resistance was also extremely heavy. According to the Roman historian Dio Cassius, hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their lives during these wars.
The great resistance of the Jews against Rome began in 66 A.D. and lasted for approximately seventy years with various stages. The fact that a relatively small people could resist the world’s most powerful empire for such a long time is one of the rare events in history.
The main reason for this resistance was related to the religious and national identity of the Jews. The belief in monotheism and the laws of the Torah had taken such deep roots in the consciousness of the Jewish people that abandoning them was perceived as national and spiritual death.
There are very few cities in history that have influenced a people’s identity as much as Jerusalem. For the Jews, the absence of Jerusalem meant not only the loss of a city but also the loss of their national and religious center. That is precisely why they resisted the Roman Empire until their last strength.
After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Hadrian began to pursue a policy of weakening the connection of the Jews with Jerusalem and the lands of Israel. As part of this policy, Jerusalem was rebuilt and the city was named «Aelia Capitolina».
Jews were forbidden from entering the new city. They were allowed to enter the city only once a year, on the 9th of Av. On that day, they commemorated the destruction of the First and Second Temples and mourned the loss of the holy city and the Temple.
Thus, even though Jerusalem was changed politically and physically, it continued to maintain its sacred place in the memory and religious consciousness of the Jewish people. In addition, Emperor Hadrian took important steps to weaken the Jewish national identity in the region. He took the name of the Philistines (Palestinians), who had once lived on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and were remembered in the Torah as enemies of the Jews, as a basis and named the region «Syria Palaestina». The purpose of this step was to erase the historical memory associated with the name Judea and to weaken the connection of the Jews to the land.
This name continued to live on in Christian sources in subsequent centuries, and after the fall of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, it began to be used widely again when the region came under British control.
After this, Jews were forbidden from entering Jerusalem. The city and the surrounding region remained under Roman rule for a long time. After the division of the Roman Empire into two parts, Jerusalem passed under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire, i.e., Byzantium.
During the Byzantine period, Jews living in the region faced various restrictions and pressures. After Christianity was accepted as the state religion, the rights of Jews were restricted in many cases. They were required to change their religion, and those who did not agree were subjected to various persecutions.
During this period, Jerusalem was also considered a holy city for Christians. Because according to Christian tradition, Jesus Christ had lived, preached, and was crucified there. Byzantine rulers built many churches and religious buildings in the city.
Taking advantage of the weakening of the Byzantine Empire, the Sassanid Empire captured Jerusalem for a while, but in 629 A.D., the city returned to Byzantine control.
However, a new religion and a new state had already emerged on the Arabian Peninsula. This was the religion of Islam and the Muslim state. In 638 A.D., Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab took Jerusalem from the Byzantines, and the city passed under Muslim rule.
From this period on, the migration of the Arab population to the region accelerated. People coming from various regions of Arabia began to settle in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. In Muslim sources, the city began to be known more and more by the name «al-Quds».
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In 661–750 A.D., the city was under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate. Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan built the Dome of the Rock complex in 691 A.D. Later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was expanded, and the city became one of the important religious centers of the Islamic world.
In 750 A.D., Jerusalem passed under the rule of the Abbasids. In subsequent centuries, the city was under the administration of various Muslim states. In 878 A.D., the region passed under the control of the Fatimids. Although the Seljuks captured the city in 1077 A.D., the Fatimids restored their rule in 1098 A.D.
During this period, a new movement was forming in Europe. In 1095 A.D., Pope Urban II addressed the Christian world, declaring the necessity of reclaiming the holy lands from the Muslims. He promised religious rewards and the forgiveness of sins to those who joined the crusade.
Thus, the First Crusade began. Along the way, the Crusaders killed many people they encountered – Muslims, Jews, and sometimes even Christians of their own denomination.
Finally, in 1099 A.D., the Crusaders entered Jerusalem. The Muslim and Jewish population living in the city faced great massacres. Mosques, synagogues, and other buildings were destroyed or looted.
(Part III), to be continued…
Murad Salmanov
