Israelites and Jews

From a small e-mail group, a discussion of the distinction between “Israel” and “Jew”:

First correspondent:

… Dan was also a Jewish tribe. What happened was that Assyria exiled ten Jewish tribes and only Judah and Benjamin were left. The ten deported tribes were either wiped out or ended up in remote corners of the world.

Second correspondent:

I thought “Jew” by definition is someone from Judah, and Benjamin by implication because Judah always dominated Benjamin. Israelite, I thought, was the broader term inclusive of all the tribes.

LA:

More precision is needed with these terms. It is correct that “Jew” comes from Judah. But the word Jew does not appear at all in the Bible until the time of the Exile. (Maybe it appears once or twice late in the second Book of Kings.) Up until that point they are referred to as the Hebrews, then the children of Israel or Israelites, then as Israel and Judah or the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It is incorrect to use the word Jew for any period prior to the Exile. So, you should say the ten tribes of Israel, not the ten Jewish tribes.

And this is not just a matter of dating or where the word appears in the Bible. The appearance of the word “Jew” denotes a radical break in the history of Israel. Israel has lost its nation (its nation-state for you sticklers out there), it has lost the Temple, the center of its religion, it is now a diaspora people. In the Babylonian Exile, one of the most important events in history occurs. The Jews essentially remake themselves. Instead of a people in their own land, the land given to them by God, which Israel/Judah has now lost through disobedience, they become the people of the Law, the people of the Sabbath, using their laws and customs to maintain themselves as a people under God, since they no longer have the land and the Temple.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 08, 2004 11:18 PM | Send