Guy Chet__Rome's Jewish Wars & modern Israel

In the 1st & 2nd centuries AD, Judea launched two major rebellions against the Roman Empire. These revolts represented a major military challenge to Rome, but it suppressed them both with brutal efficiency. Rome's Jewish Wars had a tremendous impact on Jewish history -- putting an end to Jewish sovereignty in Judea, precipitating the Jews' 2,000-year exile from their homeland, and changing the practice of Jewish worship -- but it also had an important impact on Roman history, by bringing about the final split between Jews & Christians. This transformed Christianity into a persecuted religion that eventually supplanted the Roman religion.
These Jewish Wars have also had a strong impact on the modern state of Israel. From its inception in the 1880s, the Jewish national movement (Zionism) sought to reverse the effects of these ancient wars -- to return Jews from their global diaspora to their ancient homeland, revive Jewish statehood in the land of Israel, and revive the Jewish language (Hebrew). For this reason, Zionists used these Jewish rebellions from the classical era as a central element in their effort to convince & inspire Jews in the modern era to accept Zionism's core values, beliefs, and objectives.