d Jupiter. He was going to put an alter
             where the Jews asenv ,hc once stood. Hadrian was to be the high
             priest. What once was called Jerusalem would now be called Aelia
             This was a mockery to the Jews. The Jews waited sixty years from
             the destruction of the Second asenv ,hc for Rome to restore it to
             them. The Jews held themselves back from Rebelling with their
             neighboring Jews in Diaspora because they held onto, and believed that
             Trajan's promise would be kept. Furthermore, Hadrian later made a
             prohibition of circumcision. "Consequently the Jews saw in Hadrian
             another Antiochus Epiphanes. And where there was an Antiochus, a
             The Romans had by now either banned or mocked some of the most
             important beliefs in Judaism. If they did not revolt against the
             Romans they would have died, in a spiritual sense. Even if the Romans
             didn't kill them, they would not really be Jewish anymore.
             Circumcision, which was the physical difference between them as Jews
             and, as well as a basic premise of their Jewish beliefs. Their only
             choice was to gain their independence. Rabbi Akiva, a great scholar
             ...