Rome רומי
The empire that destroyed the Second Temple and began the exile tradition calls "the exile of Edom".
Rome enters Jewish history in 3697, when Pompey—invited to settle a quarrel between Hasmonean brothers—takes Jerusalem and walks into the Holy of Holies. Then come Herod, the procurators whose greed pushes the country to explosion, the Great Revolt of 3826, the Temple's destruction in 3828, Masada, and sixty years later Bar Kochba, Betar and Hadrian's decrees, when teaching Torah was a capital crime.
For the sages Rome is "Edom", the offspring of Esav: strength, eloquence and law without mercy. The Talmud is full of exchanges with Roman interlocutors; Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's remark that Rome built its markets and bridges for its own needs costs him twelve years in a cave.
Rome's Jewish community is the oldest in Europe, living there continuously since before Christianity.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 65 — Edom as Rome in the sages’ reading
- Shabbat 33b — Rabbi Shimon on the Roman building works, and the cave
- Gittin 55b–57a — Vespasian, Titus and the destruction
- Avodah Zarah 2b — the judgement of the nations: “we built markets and bathhouses”
- Megillah 6a — “Caesarea and Jerusalem” — two opposites
Basis: tradition.