The Roman–Jewish wars of 66–70, 115–17 and 132–35 CE destroyed the territorial, social and political bases of militant Jewish nationalism. Successive defeats brought a Roman ban on Jewish residence in Jerusalem and on proselytisation. Most of the Jewish population of Judaea, in southern Palestine, was annihilated or exiled. The creative heart of Judaism shifted to Galilee, where the study of rabbinic law and homiletics flourished, mostly in Hebrew, and the Mishna – the basis of the Talmud – was edited by the Tannaim (Mishna teachers). This culture was an implicit rejection of Graeco-Roman civilisation and values in favour of a more exclusivist religious-cultural nationalism. It is argued in this paper that this form of nationalism, though rare in the ancient world, anticipates more recent national movements of defeated peoples.