Nadene Goldfoot
Jews had been living in Rome since 139 BCE, there as traders, no doubt, for that's the purpose of most traveling to far away places. Later on, Jews would be taken to Rome from Judea as slaves; prisoners.
Even before Rome annexed Judea as a province, the Romans had interacted with Jews from their diasporas who had settled in Rome for a century and a half. Many cities of the Roman provinces in the eastern Mediterranean contained very large Jewish communities, dispersed from the time of the sixth century BCE.
Rome had destroyed Jerusalem with fire. People were taken as slaves or killed. Those that could fled as far as possible to safer ground. Judea became a Roman province by 6 CE. Decades later, it was descending into chaos. By 132 CE, Aluf (General) Bar Kokhba had taken back Jerusalem and held it for 3 years until he was killed in battle.
In spite of the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jews remained in the land of Israel in significant numbers. The Jews who remained there went through numerous experiences and armed conflicts against consecutive occupiers of the Land. Some of the most famous and important Jewish texts were composed in Israeli cities at this time. The Jerusalem Talmud, the completion of the Mishnah and the system of niqqud (In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages.
In this period the tannaim and amoraim were active rabbis who organized and debated the Jewish oral law. A major catalyst in Judaism is Judah haNasi, who was a wealthy rabbi and one of the last tannaim, oral interpreters of the Law. He was in good standing with Roman authority figures, which aided in his ascent to being the Patriarch of the Jewish community in Palestine.
Nephew of Rabbi Eleazar of Modiin, of Davidic descent.
Following the 1st-century Great Revolt and the 2nd-century Bar Kokhba revolt, the destruction of Judea exerted a decisive influence upon the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the world, as the center of worship shifted from the Temple to Rabbinic authority.
Some Jews were sold as slaves or transported as captives after the fall of Judea, others joined the existing diaspora, while still others remained in Judea and began work on the Jerusalem Talmud. The Jews in the diaspora were generally accepted into the Roman Empire, but with the rise of Christianity, restrictions grew. Forced expulsions and persecution resulted in substantial shifts in the international centers of Jewish life to which far-flung communities often looked, although not always unified, due to the Jewish people's dispersion itself. Jewish communities were thereby largely expelled from Judea and sent to various Roman provinces in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a temple for the purpose of constructing a church. Christian historians alleged that Hadrian (2nd century) had constructed a temple of Aphrodite on the site of the crucifixion on Golgotha hill in order to suppress Jewish-Christian veneration there.
Hadrian, Roman Emperor from 117 to 138 had removed and executed the savage governor of Judea, Lucius Quietus. Lusius Quietus was a Roman general and governor of Judaea in 117. He was the principal commander against the Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War(The Kitos War was one of the major Jewish–Roman wars. The rebellions erupted in 115, when most the Roman armies were fighting Trajan's Parthian War on the eastern border of the Roman Empire.) As both a general and a highly acclaimed commander, he was notably one of the most accomplished Berber statesmen in ancient Roman history. Originally a Berber prince, Lusius' father and his warriors had supported the Roman legions in their attempt to subdue (northern modern-day Morocco) during Aedemon's revolt in 40.
Hadrian also supported Egyptian Jewry in disputes with Greeks, making a favorable impression on the Jews. Then he forbade circumcision. He visited Palestine in 130 and decided to convert Jerusalem into a roman colony, calling after himself, Aelina Capitolina. that's when Bar Kokhba rebelled. He won over the Jewish army and received the title, Imperator. Judea was then a consular province called Syria-Palaestina. The ruins of Jerusalem were reconstructed as a pagan city, and an equestrian statue of Hadrian was erected on the site of the Holy of Holies.
Jews had spread from their homeland in Judaea across the Mediterranean and there were major Jewish communities in Syria, Egypt, and Greece. Practicing a very different religion from that of their neighbors, they were often unpopular. As a result, Jewish communities were often close-knit, to protect themselves and their faith.
Jews had lived in Rome since the second century BCE. 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 BC, again in 19 AD and during the reign of Claudius. However, they were soon allowed to return and continue their independent existence under Roman law. That was Rome. Living in Palestine was another thing.
Julian, the only emperor to reject Christianity after the conversion of Constantine, allowed the Jews to return to "holy Jerusalem which you have for many years longed to see rebuilt" and to rebuild the Temple. However Julian was killed in battle on 26 June 363 in his failed campaign against the Sassanid Empire, (The Sasanian or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians, and called the Neo-Persian Empire by historians, was the last Persian imperial dynasty before the Muslim conquest in the mid seventh century AD. The Third Temple was not rebuilt at that time.
Julian was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate by the Christian Church
During the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 many Jews sided against the Eastern Roman Empire in the Jewish revolt against Heraclius, which successfully assisted the invading Persian Sassanids in conquering all of Roman Egypt and Syria. In reaction to this further anti-Jewish measures were enacted throughout the Eastern Roman realm and as far away as Merovingian France. Soon thereafter, 634, the Muslim conquests began, during which many Jews initially rose up again against their Eastern Roman rulers.
The Sasanian Empire conquered Jerusalem after a brief siege in 614, during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, after the Persian Shah Khosrau II appointed his general Shahrbaraz to conquer the Byzantine controlled areas of the Near East. Following the victory in Antioch, Shahrbaraz conquered Caesarea Maritima, the administrative capital of the province. By this time the grand inner harbor had silted up and was useless, however the Emperor Anastasius had reconstructed the outer harbor and Caesarea remained an important maritime city, providing the Persian Empire with access to the Mediterranean Sea. The Sasanian Persians were joined by Nehemiah ben Hushiel.
Benjamin of Tiberias (a man of immense wealth), who enlisted and armed Jewish soldiers from Tiberias, Nazareth and the mountain cities of Galilee, and together with a band of Arabs and additional Jews from southern parts of the country they marched on Jerusalem.
Some 20,000 Jewish rebels joined the war against the Byzantine Christians. Depending on the chronicler figures of either 20,000 or 26,000 are given. The Persian army reinforced by Jewish forces led by Nehemiah ben Hushiel and Benjamin of Tiberias would capture Jerusalem–without resistance, or after a siege and breaching the wall with artillery, depending on the source.
As to Syria-Palaestina, "Palaestina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the Paralia, and Peraea, with the governor residing in Caesarea. Palaestina Secunda consisted of the Galilee, the lower Jezreel Valley, the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former Decapolis, with the seat of government at Scythopolis. Palaestina Tertia included the Negev, southern Transjordan part of Arabia, and most of Sinai, with Petra as the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris.
The Christian emperors persecuted their Jewish subjects and restricted their rights. Constantine the Great had moved the Roman capital from Rome to Constantinople ('New Rome') c. 330, sometimes considered the start of the Byzantine Empire, and with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire.
I would say that the turmoil of constant war in the land of Judea from the time taken in 70 CE kept Jews from returning. Either the land was in the hands of the Romans or the Iranians (Sassinids), making Jews most unpopular. What Jews did was to pray 3 times a day for their return to Judah and Jerusalem to be returned to them.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/jews.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Roman_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina
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