Why Did the Emperor Claudius Shutter Rome’s Synagogues?

In the year 41 CE, the Roman emperor Claudius banned the Jews of the city of Rome from gathering in synagogues. While the extant sources do not state any reason for the ban, Warren C. Campbell points to a suggestion in the available evidence:

It seems plausible . . . that Claudius’ ban on Jewish synagogue meetings was an attempt to restrict Jewish activity in general terms, with the intention of limiting any further religious or political disturbances.

Many scholars contend that this ban failed to stifle Jewish activity in the manner envisioned by Claudius, leading him to expel the Jews from Rome later that decade. . . . [The historian] Suetonius wrote: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.” Although scholars are not completely agreed on the point, it is likely that this Chrestus conflict involved disputes about Jesus.

If the expulsion of Jews from Rome was indeed a result of Christian disturbances, the question remains: was the synagogue ban also a result of conflict surrounding Jesus within Jewish circles? Helga Botermann is one scholar who argues that both the ban and the expulsion were results of various disputes surrounding early Christians.

Read more at Bible Odyssey

More about: ancient Judaism, Ancient Rome, Christianity, History & Ideas, Synagogues

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF