Hadrian has made observance of basic Jewish practices a capital crime, banished Jews from Jerusalem, allowed the city to be renamed Aelia Capitolina (after his clan name, Aelius) and erected his planned temple to Jupiter on the ruins of Solomon's Temple.

He converts Jerusalem into a Greco-Roman city, with a circus, an amphitheater, baths, and a theater and with streets conforming to the Roman grid pattern.

To repopulate the city, Hadrian apparently brings in Greco-Syrians from the surrounding areas and even perhaps some legionary veterans.

Jews are forbidden to come within sight of the city.

The Diaspora, which had begun with the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century BCE and which had resumed early in the Hellenistic period, now involves most Jews in an exodus from what they continue to view as the land promised to them as the descendants of Abraham.