They reveal one of the most difficult times in Jewish history.
About seventy years after the destruction of the Second Temple, in about 130CE, Hadrian, the emperor of Rome, decided to build a new city in place of the destroyed Jerusalem.
He did not plan to renovate Jewish Jerusalem, but rather to build a completely new city – Aelia Capitolina.
This city was a typical Roman idolatrous city – with a theater, an idol temple, and trade on the Cardo- the main thoroughfare that bisected the city. The Jews, experiencing another attack on Jerusalem, rebelled. The Bar Kochva Revolt. The rebels etched the Temple on the coins of the rebellion, the symbol for which they were willing to fight to redeem Jerusalem.
Hadrian quashed the rebellion with great cruelty. To prevent further rebellions, he legislated laws meant to disconnect the Jewish nation from Jerusalem: Jews were forbidden from entering the city. The temples and theaters were closed to Jews.
The marketplace was empty.
In an ancient scroll called Megillat Taanit, it says that exactly today, 2,000 years ago, all of Hadrian’s decrees were canceled, and Jews could go back to living in Jerusalem.
Today, the Cardo is under the Plaza and it connects the empty city to the one flourishing and full of life.
