Nineteen centuries ago, a despot wanted to remake a capital city in his image. Really, he wanted to destroy an entire nation and its civilization, but the rebranding would begin with the nation’s capital, their cultural and religious mecca. So the Roman emperor Hadrian leveled Jerusalem and then renamed and completely rebranded it.
These are Trump specialties: destroying beautiful places and rebranding them - often naming them for himself. He’s now threatening to destroy the Kennedy Center more than he already has, and the Oval Office and the sacred boulevard to Arlington Cemetery.
As we consider how to deal with our mad and most dangerous leader, it helps to see how a similar crazyman was dealt with in the past.
There are so many parallels between the two despots it’s almost eerie.
Let’s start with Trump’s obsession with his place among the pantheon of heroes. He boasts about being better than Lincoln.
Lincoln? Well hold my beer, says Hadrian. How about Moses?
You see, there’s a Jewish legend where Hadrian boasts to a rabbi that he is greater than Moses because Moses is dead while Hadrian is alive. So Rabbi Joshua puts this theory to the test. He asks Hadrian to prohibit anyone in the empire from lighting a fire for three days. Hadrian agrees, but that evening they see smoke rising in the distance. A sick Roman official needs hot water. Rabbi Joshua has made his point: Hadrian cannot enforce his own command even for one night while still alive, while Moses prohibited Jews from lighting fire on Shabbat centuries earlier and they still obey him.
Did this really happen? If it had, Rabbi Joshua would not have lived to speak about it. He’d have been tossed aside as “fake news” just like any journalist who defies Trump and “disappears” from public view and White House press pools.
But here’s the lesson we can garner from this story. What matters is not whether Jews defied this maniac. Some did. But what matters more is that even though many Jews perished at Hadrian’s hand, their stories survived. The stories survived and so did the Jewish people and tradition, long after the last of the Caesars was duly catacombed.
The rabbis played the long game.
Hadrian’s draconian anti-Jewish decrees1 led directly to a futile revolt (which started out swimmingly) that resulted in, by some estimates, over half a million and perhaps twice that number of Jewish victims. Among the victims of the Bar Kochba revolt (132-135) were a slew of courageous rabbis, including the greatest of all, Rabbi Akiba. The narrative of their torture forms a key part of the Yom Kippur liturgy, the martyrology.
In the first great revolt against Rome, from 66-70, the great rabbinic hero, Yochanan Ben Zakkai, accommodated with the Romans and was allowed to leave besieged Jerusalem to build an academy at Yavne. Many consider that act of conciliation (which some would call capitulation) the beginning of the rabbinic era.
Hadrian loved his name, he loved to destroy, he loved to persecute and “obliterate,” he loved to relocate entire populations, he loved to torture and he loved to rebrand. He thought he was God and God’s gift. And he died.
But Akiva chose to fight, in part because Hadrian’s decrees were so repressive that there was no choice. And while rabbinic Judaism is by nature peace-loving, it is not pacifist. And so Akiva’s heroism lives on as a second lesson on how to deal with a mad, megalomaniacal dictator. You resist.
Hadrian was, as mentioned, the consummate Trumpian rebrander. Jerusalem had been destroyed in the first revolt. Six decades later, Hadrian finished the job, flattening it like so many places we’ve seen in our era, from Dresden to Tokyo to Mariupol to Gaza City. Then he rebuilt it.
Here’s how his rebranding would have been covered if they had had newspapers in the year 130 (scholars debate whether the Jerusalem name change occurred before the Bar Kochba revolt in 132-135 or after).
What Donald Trump is trying to do to Washington DC, and by extension to American culture, is precisely the kind of total transformation forced upon the Jews of Judea and the city of Jerusalem. Hadrian’s actions paralleled Trump’s in several key ways.
Destroying cultural centers and slapping his name on everything he can find.
Banning practices of religious minorities, for Hadrian, Jews, banning circumcision, Sabbath observance and the study of Torah. Trump wants America to be a Christian nation and is actively dissolving the church-state separation that protects religious minorities. He is vilifying Muslims and using Jewish concern about antisemitism to advance his agenda of suppressing higher education.
Renaming things after himself: Under Hadrian, Jerusalem became Aelia Capitolina, and a temple to Jupiter replaced the Jewish Temple. Hadrian did similar things throughout the empire, naming cities for himself2, but Jerusalem was special, because in building the temple to Jupiter on the very spot where the Holy of Holies once stood, he was demonstrating that the Jewish God was now subservient to the Roman deity - and he thought of himself in godlike terms. Notably, "Aelia" came from Hadrian's own family name (gens Aelia), and "Capitolina" honored the Roman god Jupiter Capitolinus.
He named the city after himself - and he believed himself to be a god.
If only Hadrian had the benefit of Truth Social, his assistant Natalieus Harpus would have zipped out a meme with a photo of a glowing Jesus-like Hadrian healing the sick or some such.
But who needs a meme when yours is the face the launched a million statues! (Well, at least 150 sculptures known to have survived)
The province was renamed too: Judea became Syria Palaestina. Yes, that’s where the name Palestine enters the picture. I have nothing against the name - hey, Jews living there before 1948 were considered Palestinians - and there are historical connections of the name to the ancient seafaring Philistines who colonized (deliberate word choice) part of the coast. But it should be understood that this name change was part of Hadrian’s original plan to render the country Judenrein - and to do so, he even took “Jew” out of the name Judea.
For good measure, tens of thousands of Jews were sold into slavery and Jews were barred from entering or even looking at Jerusalem. Hadrian wanted to crush the Jewish spirit and destroy their identity. He was aiming for a cultural and physical ethnic cleansing. Unlike Trump’s and Ben Gvir’s plans for Gaza, he didn’t build any personal villas and condos on the ruins of what was destroyed, but, in full Trump style, his newly rebranded Aelia sparkled with a new grid pattern, streets, baths, theaters, and temples, complete with its main commercial thoroughfare, the Cardo Maximus, a feature of all major cities of the Roman world.
So the next time you are in the Old City of Jerusalem buying a bar mitzvah gift in the Cardo, realize how ironic that is! How many Jews died so that Hadrian could build this street? How many tears were shed by those unable even to look at the city? And how does it feel to know that the money changers’ tables have now been turned and the Cardo is selling Jewish trinkets, while the Romans are long gone?
A Roman coin found there suggests that the Cardo was initially paved around 130. And speaking of coins, Hadrian, like Trump, loved to see his pretty mug on coins. What megalo-egomaniac wouldn’t! There are lots of Hadrian coins, minted in gold, silver and bronze - he didn’t know from crypto - and they are distinctive for their artistic quality and political messaging. They project power and stability - and this is a guy who ruled for 21 years, from 117-138, practically a lifetime in those days.
He loved to see his face on coins and, like Trump, to build massive walls at the border. But I don't believe Mexico paid for Hadrian’s Wall built on the frontier of Britannia in 122, after Hadrian’s visit.
Meanwhile, another Trump specialty: Those Jews who remained in Palestine were taxed heavily to pay for the new construction. Hadrian was known for imposing the first system of tariffs, as laid out in the AD 137 inscription known as the Palmyran tariff.
And of course there was Hadrian’s self-aggrandizing triumphal arch in his newly rebranded city: the Ecce Homo Arch.
Hadrian built a triple-arched gateway as an entrance to the eastern forum of Aelia Capitolina. Traditionally, this was thought to be the gate of Herod's Antonia Fortress, which itself was alleged to be the location of Jesus' trial and Pontius Pilate's Ecce homo speech as described in John 19:13. Hence the later name, which was not used by Hadrian.
See some more background on Hadrian’s arch in this video, beginning about an hour and 15 minutes in. It’s one of the best archeological tours of the Old City that I’ve found online.
Hadrian built lots of triumphal arches throughout the empire. Trump has some catching up to do. On the other hand, Hadrian built no (zero) golf courses.
And just as Donald Trump’s name appears in several spots throughout Jerusalem (including the new American Embassy), Hadrian’s name appears there too. One such example was discovered in 2014. Here’s the Times of Israel coverage:
A monumental Roman inscription bearing the name of Emperor Hadrian, which surfaced in Jerusalem during salvage excavations earlier this year, was displayed to the public by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The massive limestone slab, roughly a meter wide, with Latin text inscribed in six lines with letters several inches high, was part of a monumental arch dedicated to the emperor in 130 CE in honor of Hadrian’s arrival. It’s one of a rare few Latin inscriptions found in Jerusalem from that period. The slab’s discovery sheds light on the timeline of Jerusalem’s reconstruction following its destruction by Rome in 70 CE, demonstrating that it was in large part rebuilt just 60 years later.
“To the Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, son of the deified Traianus Parthicus, grandson of the deified Nerva, high priest, invested with the tribunician power for the 14th time, consul for the third time, father of the country [dedicated by] the 10th legion Fretensis (second hand) Antoniniana,” the text reads.
A “monumental arch,” built almost exactly 1,900 years ago, right near what is now the Via Dolorosa. Hadrian build a temple to Jupiter over the area that became the Holy Sepulchre. It’s not blocking the path between Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, but you get the idea. Each tyrant wanted to divert attention from a tomb, whether of Jesus or the Unknown Soldier (or JFK), and make sure the focus was firmly on himself.
Hadrian loved his name, he loved to destroy, he loved to persecute and “obliterate,” he loved to relocate entire populations, he loved to torture and he loved to rebrand. He thought he was God and God’s gift.
And he died. And he’s eternally hated. The rabbis who built a movement that survived his horrific repression called him “the bone crusher,” (sh’chikat atzamot) as in, “May his bones be crushed,” praying that even in death, his remains would not know a moment of peace.
Hard to say whether Hadrian rests in peace, but the rabbis who stood up to him, including those tortured by him, left a legacy that is still very much alive. Meanwhile, his epic construction projects lie in ruins, just as Trump’s will - even the gilded Oval Office decor that he now wishes to be enshrined in historic landmark status.
As Robert Frost put it, “nothing gold can stay.”3 All of Trump’s golden architectural legacy will be pulverized like Hadrian’s bones. And whatever comes of it in the near term, the Kennedy Center will someday be restored to its former glory.
For some things never die.
Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon was one of the ten rabbinic martyrs killed by Hadrian’s regime and immortalized in the liturgy of Yom Kippur. Ben Teradyon’s body was wrapped in a Torah scroll and consumed by fire. While he was experiencing indescribable anguish, his students asked him, “Our teacher, what do you see?” He responded, “I see the parchment being burnt but the letters are flying free.” (Avodah Zarah 18a)4.
That kind of courage to stand up for principle is much less challenging for those of us not having to face a burning stake or lynching tree. But many of us have suffered from Trump’s reign of terror in less draconian ways and many more will. All of us have, in fact, thanks to the many powerful people who have capitulated. Those who in their cowardice have desecrated everything from the Kennedy Center to Lake Ontario will have to answer to history, as Hadrian has. And as Trump will.
We learned long ago in the days of a Roman madman that there’s only one way to defeat such a power-hungry despot - and that is to stand up to him while you can and play the long game even when you can’t. Eventually, his bones will be one with the dust.
Washington will soon be released from the curse of its gilded Trumpian rebrand. Just as Jerusalem herself has risen from the dust of Aelia Capitolina to rip off those Hadrianic shackles, battered and shaken, but strangely united in its disparate and endless suffering. It’s a good lesson post-October 7, as the third anniversary approaches. And it’s a good lesson for those who suffer on all sides of this conflict - and all conflicts.
As the poet Yehuda Amichai wrote:
Jerusalem stone is the only stone that can
feel pain. It has a network of nerves.
From time to time Jerusalem crowds into
mass protests like the Tower of Babel.
But with huge clubs God-the-Police beats her
down: houses are razed, walls flattened,
and afterward the city disperses, muttering
prayers of complaint and sporadic screams from churches
and synagogues and loud-moaning mosques.
Each to his own place.
And how did they enforce the ban on circumcision? Did they have spot checks at check-posts on the road to Lydda or something?
Cities named for Hadrian include:
Hadrianopolis (modern Edirne, Turkey) – A prominent Roman, Byzantine, and later Ottoman city.
Antinoöpolis (Egypt) – Founded in 130 CE in memory of Hadrian’s beloved Antinous, who drowned in the Nile.
Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) – After crushing the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE), Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina banned Jewish practices and dedicated the city to Jupiter Capitolinus.
Hadrianopolis (modern Amasea, Turkey) – The city of Amasea in Pontus was enhanced under Hadrian.
Hadrianopolis (modern Neocaesarea/Niksar, Turkey) – The Pontic city of Neocaesarea was strengthened and expanded, gaining the name Hadrianopolis.
Hadrianopolis (modern Napoca/Cluj-Napoca, Romania) – Hadrian granted municipal status to Napoca, renaming it Hadrianopolis and expanding its importance in the province of Dacia.
Colonia Hadriana (Carthage, Tunisia) – Hadrian refounded Carthage as Colonia Hadriana, reviving the city as an important Roman hub in North Africa.
Hadrianopolis (Bulla Regia, Tunisia) – The North African city of Bulla Regia received Hadrian’s patronage and was temporarily renamed Hadrianopolis.
Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica (Italica, Spain) – Hadrian’s birthplace, Italica, was expanded and renamed Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica in his honor.
The Hadrianic Quarter in Athens – Hadrian transformed Athens into a major cultural center, sponsoring the construction of an entirely new district, including the Library of Hadrian and the Arch of Hadrian, which symbolized the city’s new era under Roman rule.
Frost’s poem:
Talmudic passage about Hanina:
