The Difference Between "Israel" and "Jews"

Q. The Assyrians took most of the tribes and it seems that only Yehuda and Binyamin were left. “Israel” was the tribes that were lost. Was there an Israel after that or just Yehuda and Binyamin?

A. Thanks for your question. After the civil war (following the death of King Solomon), there were two kingdoms: Israel (comprising ten Tribes) and Yehuda (made up of two Tribes). The kingdom of Israel was exiled by the Assyrians and are now referred to as the ten "lost" Tribes, though they're not completely lost. Plenty of people from Israel were in Judah when the Assyrians exiled them, plus the prophet Jeremiah went and brought back some of the exiled refugees. When the Jews returned to rebuild the Temple, they continued to use the name Judah, from which we get the word "Jews."

You can see that the name of this Tribe/kingdom continued to be used throughout most of history, as in the following examples:

·       The Jews are called "Yehudim" in the book of Esther;

·       Ezra 1:2 refers to "Jerusalem, which is in Judah";

·       The Romans called Israel "Judaea" (or at least they did until they renamed the combined territory of Syria and Israel "Syria Palaestina," which causes us problems to this day);

·       The Germans called us Juden;

·       etc., etc., etc.

So the Jews were always called "the children of Israel" and the land was always called "eretz Yisroel" but the nation – the political entity that lives on that land – wasn't called Israel again until 1948.

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