Nadene Goldfoot
Alexander the Great in the Temple of Jerusalem. Sebastiano Conca, circa 1750.
Realize this; before the Romans and their occupation were the Hellenizing Greek-Syrians led by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a Hellenistic king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BCE until his death in 164 BCE. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithradates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne.) who tried to stamp out Judaism, who had taken over the Temple and placed their idols in it. They tried to force Jews to eat pork. Finally Judas the Maccabee of the Hasmonean family took them on and rebelled. We remember the period with the holiday of Hanukkah. The history of Greeks in Syria traditionally begins with Alexander the Great's (336-323 BCE) conquest of the Persian Empire. In the aftermath of Alexander's death, his empire was divided into several successor states, and thus ushering in the beginning of the Hellenistic Age. For the Levant and Mesopotamia, it meant coming under the control of Seleucus I Nicator and the Seleucid Empire (The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state in Western Asia that existed from 312 BCE to 63 BCE. It was founded by Seleucus I Nicator following the division of the Macedonian Empire established by Alexander the Great.). The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization. and occupation in Jerusalem.
Jews had lived in Rome since the second century BCE. Jews, as part of the Jewish diaspora, migrated to Rome and Roman Europe from the Land of Israel, Asia Minor, Babylon and Alexandria in response to economic hardship and incessant warfare over the land of Israel between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. In Rome, Jewish communities enjoyed privileges and thrived economically, becoming a significant part of the Empire's population (perhaps as much as ten percent).
Julius Caesar and Augustus supported laws that allowed Jews protection to worship as they chose. Synagogues were classified as colleges to get around Roman laws banning secret societies and the temples were allowed to collect the yearly tax paid by all Jewish men for temple maintenance. 
There had been upsets: Jews had been banished from Rome in 139 BCE, again in 19 CE and during the reign of Claudius. However, they were soon allowed to return and continue their independent existence under Roman law.
The Roman general Pompey in his eastern campaign established Roman Syria in 64 BCE and conquered Jerusalem shortly after, in 63 BCE. Romans occupied Jerusalem for 134 years until they destroyed it in 70 CE. Notice that the Romans were right on the heels of the Greek Syrians in occupying Jerusalem. Jews had no relief from occupiers.
Under Julius Caesar, Judaism was officially recognized as a legal religion, a policy followed by the first Roman emperor, Augustus. The ruling Hasmonean dynasty was deposed by the Romans after the Roman Senate declared Herod the Great "King of the Jews" in c. 40 BCE, the Roman province of Egypt was established in 30 BCE, and Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea (biblical Edom) became the Roman province of Iudaea in 6 CE.
Jewish–Roman tensions resulted in several Jewish–Roman wars, 66–135 CE, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and institution of the Jewish Tax in 70 and Hadrian's attempt to create a new Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina c. 130. It was the Zealots who had started the Rebellion in 66.
Jews have continued to live on in Italy despite the fact that many were brought to Rome as slaves. The Kalonymus family is a prominent one that traces their line to the 8th century who moved to Germany by the 10th century of which my Goldfoot line connects. Rather, they were of the beginning of the Ashkenazi Jews. No doubt they were in Rome from the beginning of the Roman Empire in 27 BCE.
Agrippa I, King of Judea
During 70 CE the Romans, occupiers of Jerusalem, burned down the 2nd Temple and with it, the city of Jerusalem. The Jews had rebelled and there was the 1st Jewish-Roman War the started in the year 66 and continued until 73.
Before this had happened, Agrippa I, born in 11 BCE(Herod Agrippa I, alias Marcus Julius, was the King of Judea. He was the son of ARISTOBULUS, and the grandson of King Herod who had done so much renovation on the 2nd Temple. His father was one of 2 son, the heirs of Herod by Princess Mariamne I , Herod's 2nd wife, the Hasmonean , daughter of Alexander, son of Aristobulus II who died in 29 BCE. She had been married off to Herod at a very young age. Herod had murdered her family. Herod's sister was Salome who told Herod that Mariamne committed adultery, and for this she had been executed.
These 2 brothers had followed their mother to execution, and the murdered princes had become the subject of romance, so that Agrippa was able to use popular sympathy to help him in his rise to the Herodian throne, a position for which there were better candidates than he, which is usually the case. In this case it was he who had the pull, the clout, the popular coverage that got him the throne. He had the well-known parents of the day and pull.
Agrippa was educated at the court of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, and was friendly with his son, DRUSUS. After Drusus died, he became involved in some escapades with CALIGULA, the heir apparent who became emperor from 37 to 41 CE, and for that was imprisoned by Emperor Tiberius for suspected treachery. It was Caligula himself who gave Agrippa the tetrarchy of NE Judea and the title of king.
Caligula was a crazy man who insisted on being worshipped as a divinity (G-d) which caused havoc with the Jews and this was the excuse for all the anti-Jewish disturbances in Alexandria on the occasion of Agrippa's visit in 38 CE. It was Philo who headed the Jewish delegation sent to intercede with Caligula and has recorded a graphic impression of his court. Caligula was assassinated at age 28 by members of the Praetorian Guard, which prevented serious consequences in the Jewish world.
Josephus, the Jewish general turned historian for the Romans pictured Agrippa as a reckless,, charming person who was as weak as the rest of the past Herods. The 1st King Herod (73 BCE-4 BCE) of Judea was the son of an Idumean father, Aristobulus by his Nabatean wife, Cypros, so he was a converted Jew as the Idumeans (Edom) were from the SE part of Judea around Mt. Seir, a mountainous part of the country. They were Semites, but descendants of Esau, the twin of Jacob, and lived by hunting. The Edomites had become the traditional enemies of the Israelites and fought against Israel's first king, Saul but were defeated by David. Now one of them has become king of Judea through the Romans, another enemy who is a puppet of Rome. His mother, a Nabatean, were from people of Arab extraction who occupied Edom in the 6th century BCE and had their capital at Petra, found in today's Jordan. Herod had no followers backing him of the Jewish people. He gained points, though, by the restoration of the Temple when it needed it from them.
Pontius Pilate arrived in Judea from Rome at the same time that Agrippa Herod had arrived. At this time, John, the Baptist was on the scene, preaching to the Essenes. Pontius Pilate was a procurator, a governor of Judea under the Roman emperors. Governor ruled from 6 to 66 CE, almost up to the destruction of Jerusalem. 14 governors were ruling altogether in Judea, 7 who ruled between 6 to 41 CE and the other between 44 to 66 CE. They administered as subordinates to the Syrian legate who had authority over the procurators if he was charged with abusing his office with being unduly extortionate in his treatment of the population, and especially in the event of rebellion. Then the legate of Syria would act as final arbiter and either exonerate or punish the procurator. Punishment could mean dismissal from the office theoretically. In reality, they were independent governor armed with full administrate authority. They enjoyed the "right of the sword," full powers to inflict punishment including the death penalty for those not Roman citizens. Those people could demand the transfer of their trial to be heard before the Emperor in Rome. These procurators in Judea usually lived in Caesarea, the administrative capital of Roman Judea. If they were in Jerusalem for an occasion, they lived in Herod's palace.
After the influences of the Greeks and then the Romans, it's a wonder that Judaism came down to us at all, and does explain much of the questions and seeking of the true nature of G-d and his expectations of us throughout the period of Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes. Jews had collided with differing philosophies of living and thinking. It was a traumatic period for them. For them, occupation had become the norm.
With the Kalonymus family leading Jews to Germany, Judaism held on and transpired into Ashkenazic Judaism, actually mimicking what became the Sephardic Judaism and the Mizrachi Judaism with only slight differences in food selections. those Jews who remained in Italy found themselves held in the world's 1st Jewish ghetto on March 29, 1516.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Barbara Thiering
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbkjxph.20?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-caligula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_Pilate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalonymos_family
Book: FINDING OUR FATHERS by Dan Rottenberg
https://www.worldjewishtravel.org/listing/remembering-the-worlds-first-jewish-ghetto/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-aGCBhCwARIsAHDl5x_VGJP4y2QT2qVIdJLXfi_fTRb8dOCS1LjXgCGMzaqWgRw0kXOS7ZwaAkXzEALw_wcB
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