ABSTRACT
Defeat and forced submission to Rome made possible the unprecedented success of Jewish elementary education under Roman rule in the land of Israel. Jews could interpret their defeat less as a military failure than a moral judgment for which education was a necessary stage to atonement. Defeat had a socially leveling effect in an overwhelmingly traumatized and impoverished society. The high valuation of learning was a powerful force of unity in Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael and the diaspora. Jewish education was stimulated by urbanization in Galilee. Most surviving Jews had lost their farms in the south and were forced to move north. Galilee, ironically notorious as a provincial backwater, emerged as the thriving base for Jewish survival through education, which expanded as economic conditions improved after the revolts.
