Editing Jewish diaspora (section)

==Destruction of Judea==
{{See also|Jewish–Roman wars|Judea (Roman province)}}
[[File:Arch of Titus Menorah.png|thumb|250px|alt=Relief carving depicting Roman soldiers carrying a menorah and other artifacts|Copy of relief panel from the [[Arch of Titus]] in the [[Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish People]], depicting the [[Roman triumph|triumphal parade]] of Roman soldiers celebrating {{lang|la|Judaea Capta}} ("Judaea is enslaved/conquered") and leading newly enslaved Jews, while displaying spoils of the [[Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70)|siege of Jerusalem]].<ref name=FK2010>{{cite book|last=Kleiner|first=Fred|title=Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History, Enhanced, Volume I: 1|year=2010|publisher=Wadsworth Publishing|isbn=978-1439085783|page=262|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S1CRuET2CP8C&q=%22Arch%20of%20Titus%22&pg=PA262}}</ref>]] 
Roman rule in Judea began in 63 BCE with the [[Siege of Jerusalem (63 BC)|capture of Jerusalem]] by [[Pompey]]. After the city fell to Pompey's forces, thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought from Judea to Rome and sold into slavery. After these Jewish slaves were [[manumitted]], they settled permanently in Rome on the right bank of the [[Tiber]] as traders.<ref>Davies, William David; Finkelstein, Louis; Horbury, William; Sturdy, John; Katz, Steven T.; Hart, Mitchell Bryan; Michels, Tony; Karp, Jonathan; Sutcliffe, Adam; Chazan, Robert: [https://books.google.com/books?id=AW2BuWcalXIC&pg=PA168 The Cambridge History of Judaism: The early Roman period], p.168 (1984), Cambridge University Press</ref><ref name=jewishencyclopedia/> In 37 BCE, the forces of the Jewish client king [[Herod the Great]] [[Siege of Jerusalem (37 BC)|captured Jerusalem]] with Roman assistance, and there was likely an influx of Jewish slaves taken into the diaspora by Roman forces. In 53 BCE, a minor Jewish revolt was suppressed and the Romans subsequently sold Jewish war captives into slavery.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&pg=PA131 The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian : a Study in Political Relations], p. 131</ref> Roman rule continued until the [[First Jewish-Roman War]], or the Great Revolt, a Jewish uprising to fight for independence, which began in 66 CE and was eventually crushed in 73 CE, culminating in the [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|Siege of Jerusalem]] and the burning and destruction of the Temple, the centre of the national and religious life of the Jews throughout the world. The Jewish diaspora at the time of the Temple's destruction, according to [[Josephus]], was in Parthia (Persia), Babylonia (Iraq), Arabia, as well as some Jews beyond the Euphrates and in Adiabene (Kurdistan). In Josephus' own words, he had informed "the remotest Arabians" about the destruction.<ref>{{PACEJ|text=JW|NorW=W|bookno=1|chap=0|sec=2|show-translator=yes}} (Preface) Greek: {{lang|grc|Ἀράβων τε τοὺς πορρωτάτω}}.</ref> Jewish communities also existed in southern Europe, Anatolia, Syria, and North Africa. Jewish pilgrims from the diaspora, undeterred by the rebellion, had actually come to Jerusalem for [[Passover]] prior to the arrival of the Roman army, and many became trapped in the city and died during the siege.<ref>Wettstein, Howard: [https://books.google.com/books?id=6u90DckCgo4C&pg=PA31 Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity], p. 31</ref> According to Josephus, about 97,000 Jewish captives from Judea were sold into slavery by the Romans during the revolt.<ref>Flavius Josephus: [https://pace.webhosting.rug.nl/york/york/showText?book=6&chapter=9&textChunk=whistonSection&chunkId=3&up.x=&up.y=&text=wars&version=&direction=&tab=&layout=english The Judean War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116065616/https://pace.webhosting.rug.nl/york/york/showText?book=6&chapter=9&textChunk=whistonSection&chunkId=3&up.x=&up.y=&text=wars&version=&direction=&tab=&layout=english |date=2018-11-16 }}, Book 6, Chapter 9</ref> Many other Jews fled from Judea to other areas around the Mediterranean. Josephus wrote that 30,000 Jews were deported from Judea to [[Carthage]] by the Romans.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-genetics-jews-idINBRE8751EI20120806|title=Genetic study offers clues to history of North Africa's Jews|newspaper=Reuters|date=August 6, 2012|via=www.reuters.com}}</ref>

Exactly when [[Anti-Judaism#Pre-Christian Roman Empire|Roman Anti-Judaism]] began is a question of scholarly debate, however historian [[Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson]] has proposed that the [[Caligula#Financial crisis and famine|"Crisis under Caligula"]] (37–41) was the "first open break between Rome and the Jews".<ref>[[Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson]], ''A History of the Jewish People'', Harvard University Press, 1976, {{ISBN|0-674-39731-2}}, ''The Crisis Under Gaius Caligula'', pages 254–256: "The reign of Gaius Caligula (37–41) witnessed the first open break between the Jews and the [[Julio-Claudian]] empire. Until then—if one accepts [[Sejanus]]' heyday and the trouble caused by the [[Census of Quirinius|census after Archelaus' banishment]]—there was usually an atmosphere of understanding between the Jews and the Empire ... These relations deteriorated seriously during Caligula's reign, and, though after his death the peace was outwardly re-established, considerable bitterness remained on both sides. ... Caligula ordered that a golden statue of *himself* be set up in the Temple in Jerusalem. ... Only Caligula's death, at the hands of Roman conspirators (41), prevented the outbreak of a Jewish-Roman war that might well have spread to the entire East."</ref> Meanwhile, the [[Kitos War]], a rebellion by Jewish diaspora communities in Roman territories in the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, led to the destruction of Jewish communities in Crete, Cyprus, and North Africa in 117 CE, and consequently the dispersal of Jews already living outside of Judea to further reaches of the Empire.<ref name=JewishEncDiaspora>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5169-diaspora|title=DIASPORA - JewishEncyclopedia.com|website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com}}</ref>

[[Jerusalem]] had been left in ruins from the time of [[Vespasian]]. Sixty years later, Hadrian, who had been instrumental in the expulsion from Palestine of [[Marcius Turbo]] after his bloody repression of Jews in the diaspora in 117 CE,<ref>Galimnberti, 2010, p.73.</ref> on visiting the area of ''Iudaea'', decided to rebuild the city in 130 CE, and settle it, circumstantial evidence suggesting it was he who renamed it{{sfn|Feldman|1990|p=19|ps=: "While it is true that there is no evidence as to precisely who changed the name of Judaea to Palestine and precisely when this was done, circumstantial evidence would seem to point to Hadrian himself, since he is, it would seem, responsible for a number of decrees that sought to crush the national and religious spirit of the Jews, whether these decrees were responsible for the uprising or were the result of it. In the first place, he refounded Jerusalem as a Graeco-Roman city under the name of Aelia Capitolina. He also erected on the site of the Temple another temple to Zeus."}}{{sfn|Jacobson|2001|p=44-45|ps=: "Hadrian officially renamed Judea Syria Palaestina after his Roman armies suppressed the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (the Second Jewish Revolt) in 135 C.E.; this is commonly viewed as a move intended to sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland. However, that Jewish writers such as Philo, in particular, and Josephus, who flourished while Judea was still formally in existence, used the name Palestine for the Land of Israel in their Greek works, suggests that this interpretation of history is mistaken. Hadrian's choice of Syria Palaestina may be more correctly seen as a rationalization of the name of the new province, in accordance with its area being far larger than geographical Judea. Indeed, Syria Palaestina had an ancient pedigree that was intimately linked with the area of greater Israel."}} ''[[Ælia Capitolina]]'', with a Roman ''colonia'' and foreign cults. It is commonly held that this was done as an insult to the Jews and as a means of erasing the land's Jewish identity,<ref>[[Gudrun Krämer]] [https://books.google.com/books?id=tWrW_CKODdQC&pg=PA14 ''A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel,''] [[Princeton University Press]] p.14:"As another element of retaliation, the Romans renamed the province of Judaea "Syria Palestina" to erase any linguistic connection with the rebellious Jews. As mentioned earlier, the name "Palestine" in itself was not new, having already served in Assyrian and Egyptian sources to designate the coastal plain of the southern Levant."</ref><ref>William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz (eds.) [https://archive.org/details/cambridgehis_xxxx_1984_004_8494287 ''The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period,''] [[Cambridge University Press]] 1984p=?: 'Hadrian visited Palestine in 130, as part of a tour of the eastern provinces of the Empire. It now seems likely, though not absolutely certain, that it was on this occasion that he announced his intention to restore Jerusalem, not as a Jewish city, but as a Roman colony to be named Aelia Capitolina, after himself (his full name was Publius Aelius Hadrianus) and Jupiter Capitolinus, the chief god of the Roman pantheon. This was presumably both intended and understood as a humiliating insult to the defeated God of Israel, who had previously occupied the site, and by extension to the people who persisted in worshiping Him. It also rendered the restoration of His Temple moot.’</ref><ref name="Ariel Lewin p. 33">Ariel Lewin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zlToSqE0k_cC&pg=PA33  ''The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine,''] [[Getty Publications]] 2005 p. 33: "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name - one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus - Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land.'</ref><ref name="The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered">[[Peter Schäfer]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=1TA-Fg4wBnUC&pg=PA33  ''The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered''] Mohr Siebeck 2003 p.33.</ref> Others argued that this project was expressive of an intention of establishing administratively and culturally a firm Roman imperial presence, and thus incorporating the province, now called Syro-Palaestina, into the Roman world system. These political measures were, according to Menachem Mor, devoid of any intention to eliminate Judaism,<ref>Menahem Mor,  [https://books.google.com/books?id=T8wJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA487 ''The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 CE,''] [[Brill Publishers|BRILL]], 2016 p.487:’Despite the fact that the actions of Hadrian were of a political nature, their intention was not to bring about the eliminating of Judaism, at least not according to Hadrian’s perceptions. Some of the Jewish population in the Judeaean mountains regarded Roman conquest and the general policy of the emperor carried out by Tineius Rufus, the local governor, as sufficient cause for another revolt against Rome. Yet the territorial limitations of the Second Revolt testify that most of the Jewish population in Judea did not regard these activities as a reason for rebellion.’</ref> indeed, the pagan reframing of Jerusalem may have been a strategic move designed to challenge, rather, the growing threat, pretensions and influence of converts to Christianity, for whom Jerusalem was likewise a crucial symbol of their faith.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Golan |first1=David |title=Hadrian's Decision to supplant 'Jerusalem' by 'Aelia Capitolina' |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |date=1986 |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=226–239 |jstor=4435963 }}</ref> Implementation of these plans led to violent opposition, and triggered a full-scale insurrection with the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] (132–136 CE),<ref>Giovanni Battista Bazzana, 'Bar Kochba’s Revolt and Hadrian’s Religious Policy,’ in Marco Rizzi  (ed.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=BdQtshCmxZwC&pg=PA90  ''Hadrian and the Christians,''] [[Walter de Gruyter]], 2010 pp.85-109 p.89-91.</ref> assisted, according to [[Dio Cassius]], by some other peoples, perhaps Arabs who had recently been subjected by Trajan.<ref>Alessandro Galimberti, 'Hadrian, Eleusus, and the Begi nning of Christian Apologetics' in Marco Rizzi  (ed.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=BdQtshCmxZwC&pg=PA90  ''Hadrian and the Christians,''] [[Walter de Gruyter]], 2010 pp.71-84, p.74.</ref> The revolt was crushed, with the Jewish population of Judea devastated. Jewish war captives were again captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to Jewish tradition, the Romans deported twelve boatloads of Jews to [[Cyrenaica]].<ref>Gilbert, Martin: ''In Ishmael's House'', p. 3</ref> Voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea in the aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba revolt also expanded Jewish communities in the diaspora.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MZ2MwNzB69IC&pg=PA144|title=History of the Jews|isbn=9780845366592|last1=Dubnov|first1=Simon|date=June 1980|publisher=Associated University Presse }}</ref> Jews were forbidden entrance to Jerusalem on pain of death, except for the day of [[Tisha B'Av]]. There was a further shift of the center of religious authority from [[Yavne]], as rabbis regrouped in [[Usha (city)|Usha]] in the western Galilee, where the [[Mishnah]] was composed. This ban struck a blow at Jewish national identity within Palestine, while the Romans however continued to allow Jews in the diaspora their distinct national and religious identity throughout the Empire.<ref>Martin Goodman, [https://books.google.com/books?id=PWpyDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA75 'The Roman State and Jewish Diaspora Communities in the Antonine Age,'] in Yair Furstenberg  (ed.),''Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World,'' [[Brill Publishers|BRILL]], 2016 pp.75-86 p.75.</ref>

The military defeats of the Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. Jewish prisoners sold as slaves in the diaspora and their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free communities.<ref name="Smallwood2">E. Mary Smallwood, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&pg=PA507 ''The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian: a Study in Political Relations,''] [[Brill Publishers]] 2001 p.507.</ref> It has been argued that the archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman {{anchor|genocide-135}}genocide taking place during the Second revolt.<ref name=Taylor>J. E. Taylor  [https://books.google.com/books?id=XWIMFY4VnI4C&pg=PA243  ''The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea,''] [[Oxford University Press]]  2012 p.243:'Up until this date the Bar Kokhba documents indicate that towns, villages and ports where Jews lived were busy with industry and activity. Afterwards there is an eerie silence, and the archaeological record testifies to little Jewish presence until the Byzantine era, in En Gedi. This picture coheres with what we have already determined in Part I of this study, that the crucial date for what can only be described as genocide, and the devastation of Jews and Judaism within central Judea, was 135 CE and not, as usually assumed, 70 CE, despite the siege of Jerusalem and the Temple's destruction.'</ref>  A significant movement of gentiles and [[Samaritans]] into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter.<ref>Isaiah Gafni, [https://books.google.com/books?id=dJTnCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA67 ''Land, Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity,''] [[Bloomsbury Publishing]], 1997 p.66.</ref> During the [[Crisis of the Third Century]], civil wars in the Roman Empire caused great economic disruption, and taxes imposed to finance these wars impacted the Jewish population of Palestine heavily. As a result, many Jews emigrated to Babylon under the more tolerant [[Sassanid Empire]], where autonomous Jewish communities continued to flourish, lured by the promise of economic prosperity and the ability to lead a full Jewish life there.<ref name=Cherry>Cherry, Robert: [https://books.google.com/books?id=dZRyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA148 Jewish and Christian Views on Bodily Pleasure: Their Origins and Relevance in the Twentieth-Century], p. 148 (2018), Wipf and Stock Publishers</ref> Between the 3rd and 7th centuries, estimates indicate that the Babylonian Jewish community numbered approximately one million, which may have been the largest Jewish diaspora population of the time, possibly outnumbering those in the Land of Israel.<ref name=":53">{{Citation |last=Gafni |first=Isaiah |title=The Political, Social, and Economic History of Babylonian Jewry, 224–638 CE |date=2006 |work=The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period |volume=4 |pages=805 |editor-last=Katz |editor-first=Steven T. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-judaism/political-social-and-economic-history-of-babylonian-jewry-224638-ce/A4A6DB049FA37EE462757A705703A62F |access-date=2024-09-10 |series=The Cambridge History of Judaism |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/chol9780521772488.033 |isbn=978-0-521-77248-8|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Palestine and Babylon were both great centers of Jewish scholarship during this time, but tensions between scholars in these two communities grew as many Jewish scholars in Palestine feared that the centrality of the land to the Jewish religion would be lost with continuing Jewish emigration. Many Palestinian sages refused to consider Babylonian scholars their equals and would not ordain Babylonian students in their academies, fearing they would return to Babylon as rabbis. Significant Jewish emigration to Babylon adversely affected the Jewish academies of Palestine, and by the end of the third century they were reliant on donations from Babylon.<ref name=Cherry/>

The effect that the destruction of Jerusalem had on the Jewish diaspora has been a topic of considerable scholarly discussion.<ref>{{cite book |last=Diner |first=Hasia R. |author-link=Hasia Diner |date=2021 |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=1–4 |isbn=978-0190240943}}</ref> David Aberbach has argued that much of the European Jewish diaspora, by which he means exile or voluntary migration, originated with the Jewish wars which occurred between 66 and 135 CE.<ref name = "Aberbach">{{cite book |title= The European Jews, Patriotism and the Liberal State 1789-1939: A Study of Literature and Social Psychology Routledge Jewish Studies Series|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=B3kXQEUJy_YC&q=The+European+Jews,+Patriotism+and+the+Liberal+State| author = David Aberbach | publisher = Routledge | year = 2012|isbn = 9781136158957}}</ref>{{rp| 224}} [[Martin Goodman (historian)|Martin Goodman]] states that it is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast.<ref name="docs.google.com">{{cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ib2suAQgXxDFZ5zLdag9DMTFCaDPkJrDwResH1I_J4I/edit |work=The Times Literary Supplement|title=Secta and natio|first=MARTIN|last= GOODMAN|publisher=The Times Literary Supplement Limited |date=26 February 2010 |access-date=2 October 2013}}</ref>
Howard Adelman and Elazar Barkan challenge the "widespread notion" the Jews in Judea were only expelled after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Jewish defeat during [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] in 135 CE. They also contend it is "misleading" that the expulsion from Judea created the diaspora.<ref name=noreturn>[https://books.google.com/books?id=80j612aFo_4C&pg=PA159 ''No Return, No Refuge'' (Howard Adelman, Elazar Barkan, p. 159)]</ref>

[[Israel Bartal]] contends that [[Shlomo Sand]] is incorrect in his claim that the original Jews living in Israel were not exiled by the Romans,<ref>'Every historian knew that the myth combining destruction and expulsion was very much alive in the mind of the public, having derived from a religious tradition and become firmly rooted in secular consciousness. In the popular discourse, as in the political statements and the educational system, the expulsion of the people of Israel after the fall of the kingdom was carved in stone. Most intelligent scholars evaded this dubious area with professional elegance; here and there, as though unwittingly, they supplemented their writings with alternative explanations of the prolonged exile.' [[Shlomo Sand]], [[The Invention of the Jewish People]], [[Verso]] 2009 pp.129ff. p.143</ref> instead arguing that this view is negligible among serious Jewish study scholars.<ref name="Bartal">{{cite web |last=Bartal |first=Israel |author-link=Israel Bartal |date=July 6, 2008 |title=Inventing an invention |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999386.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303150903/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999386.html |archive-date=2009-03-03 |access-date=October 22, 2009 |publisher=[[Haaretz]] |quote=My response to Sand's arguments is that no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically "pure." Sand applies marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship. No "nationalist" Jewish historian has ever tried to conceal the well-known fact that conversions to Judaism had a major impact on Jewish history in the ancient period and in the early Middle Ages. Although the myth of an exile from the Jewish homeland (Palestine) does exist in popular Israeli culture, it is negligible in serious Jewish historical discussions. Important groups in the Jewish national movement expressed reservations regarding this myth or denied it completely.}}</ref> These scholars argue that the growth of diaspora Jewish communities was a gradual process that occurred over the centuries, starting with the Assyrian destruction of Israel, the Babylonian destruction of Judah, the Roman destruction of Judea, and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. After the revolt, the Jewish religious and cultural center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars. For the generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history.<ref name=MYTH>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/books/24jews.html?pagewanted=2 |title=Book Calls Jewish People an 'Invention' |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 23, 2009 |page=2 |quote=Experts dismiss the popular notion that the Jews were expelled from Palestine in one fell swoop in A.D. 70. Yet while the destruction of Jerusalem and Second Temple by the Romans did not create the Diaspora, it caused a momentous change in the Jews' sense of themselves and their position in the world.}}</ref>

[[Erich S. Gruen]] contends that focusing on the destruction of the Temple misses the point that already before this, the diaspora was well-established. Gruen argues compulsory dislocation of Jews during the [[Second Temple period]] (516 BCE – 70 CE) cannot explain more than a fraction of the eventual diaspora. Rather, the Jewish diaspora during this time period was created from various factors, including through the creation of political and war refugees, enslavement, deportation, overpopulation, indebtedness, military employment, and opportunities in business, commerce, and agriculture.<ref>"The vast bulk of Jews who dwelled abroad in the Second Temple period did so voluntarily. Even where initial deportation came under duress, the relocated families remained in their new residences for generations—long after the issue of forced dislocation had become obsolete. No single objective impelled them; there were multiple motives. Overpopulation in Palestine may have been a factor for some, indebtedness for others. But hardship need not have been the spur for most. The new and expanded communities that sprang up in the wake of Alexander’s conquests served as magnets for migration. And Jews made their way to locations in both the eastern and western Mediterranean. Large numbers found employment as mercenaries, military colonists, or enlisted men in the regular forces. Others seized opportunities in business, commerce, or agriculture. All lands were open to them." [[Erich S. Gruen]], "Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans", pages 2-3)</ref> Avrum Ehrlich also states that already well before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Israel.<ref>[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?&as_sdt=0,5&q=Mark+Avrum+Ehrlich Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture, Volume 1] p. 126: "In fact, well before the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in the Land of Israel."</ref> Jonathan Adelman estimated that around 60% of Jews lived in the diaspora during the Second Temple period.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Adelman|first=Jonathan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6O6SAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA46|title=The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State|date=2008-03-25|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-97414-5|language=en}}</ref> According to Gruen:

<blockquote>Perhaps three to five million Jews dwelled outside Palestine in the roughly four centuries that stretched from Alexander to [[Titus]]. The era of the Second Temple brought the issue into sharp focus, inescapably so. The Temple still stood, a reminder of the hallowed past, and, through most of the era, a Jewish regime existed in Palestine. Yet the Jews of the diaspora, from Italy to Iran, far outnumbered those in the homeland. Although Jerusalem loomed large in their self-perception as a nation, few of them had seen it, and few were likely to.<ref name=construct>[https://books.google.com/books?id=7tgXDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA285 The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History]: Gruen, Erich S., p. 285</ref></blockquote>

[[Israel Yuval]] contends the Babylonian captivity created a promise of return in the Jewish consciousness which had the effect of enhancing the Jewish self-perception of Exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, albeit their dispersion was due to an array of non-exilic factors.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=gg0m24wY_lUC&q=The+Ten+Lost+Tribes%3A+A+World+History ''The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History'' (Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Oxford University Press 2009) pp. 17–18]"the dispersal of the Jews, even in ancient times, was connected with an array of factors, none of them clearly exilic"</ref> According to [[Hasia R. Diner]], the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, followed by the dissolution, in 132 CE, of Jewish sovereignty over the territory renamed Syria Palaestina, had launched the second dispersion of the diaspora, the first being the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE.<ref>{{cite book |last=Diner |first=Hasia R. |author-link=Hasia Diner |date=2021 |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=3–4 |isbn=978-0190240943}}</ref> She writes that, "Although many Jews had lived outside Judea even before that [the destruction of Judea], the ending of home rule set in motion the world’s longest diaspora."<ref>{{cite book |last=Diner |first=Hasia R. |author-link=Hasia Diner |date=2021 |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=4 |isbn=978-0190240943}}</ref>