In 66 AD, the Romans did nothing when Greeks in Alexandria Egypt massacred (burning some of them alive) local Jews. That was just one of the atrocities that led to the Roman War (Josephus’ Jewish War) that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Years went by. Hadrian didn’t want to rebuild it, he wanted to replace it. His first bang-up idea was to build a temple to Jupiter on the site of the destroyed Temple, and that was the precipitating event in the Bar Kokhba revolt.
After smashing the Jews again in that war, he had Aelia Capitolina built over the ruins of Jerusalem, and banished the Jewish population from the city.
The Romans had tried to stop the long practice of the Temple Tax. After the Temple was destroyed, Rome continued to collect the tax but kept the money, in an additional “**** you” to the Jews. As Michael Grant notes in his book “The Jews in the Roman Empire”, at their peak, which corresponds approximately to the peak of the population of the Empire, Jews made up about 15 percent of its population.
I just downloaded Michael Grant’s “The Jews in the Roman empire “ and in the introduction he writes
“Numerically, taken over the whole earth, they were fewer in those days than they are now – perhaps eight million as against fourteen million today. But no less than seven of these eight million were in the Roman empire, where they constituted between six and nine per cent of the population – in the eastern provinces, the percentage was perhaps as high as twenty.”
So more like 7.5% not 15%
Interesting
The fiscus Iudaicus was originally imposed on Jews. At the time neither the Romans nor, probably, the Christians considered their religion to be separate from Judaism. If anything they would have considered themselves as a Jewish sect
In 96 AD, Domitian’s successor Nerva reformed the administration of fiscus Iudaicus and redefined Judaism as a religion. This meant that Judaism was seen as distinct from Christianity and only those practising the former were liable to the tax