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 on Bible Odyssey: http://www.bibleodyssey.org/tools/ask-a-scholar/jews-in-rome