Nadene Goldfoot
70 CE was the date that the Romans burned down Jerusalem and Solomon's 2nd Temple, taking as many Jews as they could as prisoners to sell in Rome and killing the majority. Jews fled if they could out of Judah, that had become Judaea when Roman soldiers occupied the land.
- 131–136
- The Roman emperor Hadrian (emperor from 117-138 CE) , among other provocations, renames Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina" and prohibits circumcision. Simon bar Kokhba (Bar Kosiba) leads a large Jewish revolt against Rome in response to Hadrian's actions. In the aftermath, most Jewish population is annihilated (about 580,000 killed) and Hadrian renames the province of Judea to Syria Palaestina, and attempts to root out Judaism.
- 136
- Rabbi Akiva (50-135 CE) is martyred. Greatest scholar of his time, supporter of General Bar Kokhba, said to be Messiah, who took back Jerusalem in 132-135.
- 138
- With Emperor Hadrian's death, the persecution of Jews within the Roman Empire is eased and Jews are allowed to visit Jerusalem on Tisha B'av. In the following centuries the Jewish center moves to Galilee.
From Jerusalem some Jews managed to get to the Rhineland of Germany. Such Jews as these became known as the Ashkenazi Jews, differentiating from the Sephardic Jews of Spain who took a different path out of Jerusalem. By 321 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine issued regulations which showed a Jewish community with rabbis and elders in Cologne. Others also settled along the Rhineland at the time. Jews were also found to be used as soldiers in the Roman garrisons. The Carolingian royal house adopted a pro-Jewish policy and encouraged the settlement of Jews in its dominions with the object of developing trade. By the 10th century, Jews were living in Worms, Mainz,, Speyer, and Cologne where an intense intellectual life developed by the 11th century under Franco-Jewish influence. The 1st persecution was recorded in 1012 and was probably not unique.
Our famous biblical scholar, RASHI, was born in Troyes, France in 1044. He first studied to be a rabbi in the Rhineland of Germany, then returned to Troyes where he opened his own school. He also maintained his own vineyard which was his business. People wrote to him from afar asking for his own Jewish opinion about matters. He died in 1105. Troyes is located on the Seine river about 140 km (87 mi) south-east of Paris.
Troyes has been in existence since the Roman era, then known as Augustobona Tricassium, which stood at the hub of numerous highways, primarily the Via Agrippa. The city has a rich historical past, from the Tricasses tribe to the liberation of the city on August 25, 1944 during the Second World War, including the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, the Council of Troyes, the marriage of Henry V and Catherine of France and the Champagne fairs for which merchants came from all over Christendom.
By 1066 we see that some Jews had made it to France and the Province of Normandy within France. Many Jews lived there in the Middle Ages, known to us by the number of rabbinical scholars as well as streets in some localities named after the Jewish population. They were expelled in 1394, but in the early 17th century, there was an important Marrano settlement at Rouen. Marranos were Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity or lose their lives, but were still Jews, but hiding the fact, still practicing what they could. The number of Jews grew in the 19th century, and there are now communities at Rouen, Le havare, and Ellbeuf.
