How did the Jews react to Roman rule of their homeland?

Answer 1

The Jews rebelled against the Romans several times.

The uprising against the Census of Quirinius (6/7) the First Roman Jewish War, or Great Revolt (66-73) the Kitos War (115-117) the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-13) and the Jewish revolt against Heraclius (614-17).

Riots erupted in Alexandria of Egypt in 40 between Jews and Greeks during the reign of Caligula. In the city of Jamnia (in Judea) Jews were angered by the erection of a clay altar and destroyed it. Caligula's response to the crisis was to order the erection of a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. The governor of Syria feared that this would provoke a revolt and delayed its implementation for nearly a year. Caligula was persuaded to abandon this idea.

Answer 2

As long as the Romans restricted their presence to reasonable governance and taxation, the circumspect (religious majority) did not react. The hot-headed Zealots, however, against the advice of the Torah-leaders, pressed for war. Background:

Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, the two sons of the Jewish King Yannai (Johanan Hyrcanus, 1st century BCE), had gotten the Romans involved in Judea when they asked them to settle a dispute. At first the Romans were cordial; and they actually became party to a military treaty with Judea (Talmud, Avodah Zara 8b). The Romans didn't interfere much in Jewish internal matters, because the main thing that they wanted was taxes and a quiet populace.A couple of decades later, however, they unilaterally abrogated the treaty, and placed Roman governors over the land who afflicted the Jews with crushing taxation (Talmud, Yoma 9a).

In the first two centuries CE, things got worse, with the Romans destroying Jerusalem and the Second Temple after the Jewish Zealots attempted to revolt. The Romans sold hundreds of thousands of Jews into slavery (Josephus). From time to time they forbade the observance of the Torah-commands, and they killed several of the leading Sages, despite the fact that the Torah-leaders had advised against revolt (Talmud, Gittin 56a).

Later, Simeon Bar Kochba led a second revolt, in an ill-advised attempt to recreate the independent Judea. The Romans responded by destroying Betar, and the emperor Hadrian outlawed the practice of Judaism.

See also:

Jewish history timeline

The Jews and the Romans