Posted: 11/14/2009 6:24:03 PM EDT
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I have a question for the Hive tonight.
All my years of studying History and the Bible have taught me that the word "Jew" comes from the word "Judah". There were 12 tribes and only one "Judah". My question is why is EVERYBODY from Israel called a "jew" when it is meant only for the ones from the tribe of "Judah"? The rest, in my opinion should be called Israeli's. Just a question I have wondered over the years. Maybe someone here can give some insight on this and NOT slam the Scriptures. 
Anyone full blooded Jew here? Thanks fellas in advance. |
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Ten tribes "disapeared" in captivity. The Northern Kingdom-Israel minus Judah, went into a different captivity than the Southern kingdom-Judah, some Levites, and another tribe. They didn't make it out. The practice at the time was to call one Kingdom Judah, and the other Israel, more or less short for "the rest of Israel". They were hostile or at war most of the time after Solomon.
The people you see are Jews, Judans. Cohen is priest, I believe, a part of the Levi tribe. The Israelis were assimiliated. Resistance was futile. Many wonderful legends of arisen from this. One is the Ango-American-Israel cult which says the ten tribes relocated to the British isles. I believe Haile Selassi claimed to be decended from the ten tribes as well. This is probably rooted in the same story as the Ark (of the Covenant, not the boat) being somewhere in East Africa. Some people say Mormon doctrine places the Native Americans as the decendants of the lost tribes. The idea of the tribes wandering around looking for a home shows up again in a little teledrama called "Battlestar Galatica". The error is not in calling Jews Jews, but in calling Israel Israel. It should probably be called Judah. Good luck getting that through the Knesset. |
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We're going to need a bigger boat!!
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"Israel" as a united nation under Saul, David, and Solomon split when Solomon died (930BC): north (Israel - 10 tribes) and south (Judah - 2 tribes: Judah and Levi).
(Note: at this time they were called "Hebrews" or "Israelites.") Fast forward couple hundred years (722BC) and the northern kingdom was pretty much destroyed by Assyria (thus the 10 "missing" tribes myth - they're not missing, just scattered - and there is no DNA evidence to support the Mormon claim that the Jews came to America). Fast forward couple hundred more years, the southern kingdom was taken by Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar (597BC). The southern kingdom was actually taken several different times there at the end. Josiah got them in a fight with Egypt who was heading north to fight Assyria. Josiah died, Egypt conquered and set Jehoiakim on the throne as their regent. Then Nebuchadnezzar comes along and conquered the city like 3 times (the Hebrews kept rebelling against him despite Jeremiah telling them not to): 1st time Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jehioakim (and took Daniel and a bunch of youth to Babylon), 2nd time he conquered JehioaCHIN (and took Ezekiel to Babylon), and 3rd time he just nuked it from orbit and scraped the temple off of the temple mount (and it shows you how pissed off he was since some of the stones weighed several hundred tons). Nebuchadnezzar was One Bad Dude and the first world super power. Fast forward 70 years from the first conquering of Jerusalem (Babylon under the dual regency of Nebuchadnezzar's son and grandson) and Medes and Persians show up under the leadership of Cyrus and take the city without a fight (literally). Babylon had walls you could have chariot races on top of and was pretty much impregnable... except for the river that went under the wall and provided fresh water to the city. Cyrus diverted some of the water and walked under the walls into the city while Nebuchadnezzar's grandson (Belshazzar) was throwing a party. It took the people of Babylon 3 days before they knew they were conquered. Well, in an interesting turn of events, the new rulers let the Hebrews return home but the biggest tribe they had was Judah which was eventually shorted to "Jew." |
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I believe Haile Selassi claimed to be decended from the ten tribes as well.
Close. The claim was that he was descended from a royal line began by Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Cyrus diverted some of the water and walked under the walls into the city while Nebuchadnezzar's grandson (Belshazzar) was throwing a party. It took the people of Babylon 3 days before they knew they were conquered.
Well, in an interesting turn of events, the new rulers let the Hebrews return home but the biggest tribe they had was Judah which was eventually shorted to "Jew." This is why Cyrus the Great is considered a messiah by Jews. (Note that the Jewish meaning of "messiah" and the Christian meaning differ.) |
| The term Jew arose after the exiles, when most of the tribes had been scattered everywhere and the distinctions between tribes started blurring. Judah was also one of the most important tribes, so just as we called the Soviet Union "Russia" and its people "Russians" after its most important state, Judah came to represent the whole. The distinctions became even easier to ignore when Israel started coming into full contact with the Greek world, which was largely responsible for the term "Jew" coming to mean anybody from Israel. |
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Quoted:
I believe Haile Selassi claimed to be decended from the ten tribes as well.
Close. The claim was that he was descended from a royal line began by Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Cyrus diverted some of the water and walked under the walls into the city while Nebuchadnezzar's grandson (Belshazzar) was throwing a party. It took the people of Babylon 3 days before they knew they were conquered.
Well, in an interesting turn of events, the new rulers let the Hebrews return home but the biggest tribe they had was Judah which was eventually shorted to "Jew." This is why Cyrus the Great is considered a messiah by Jews. (Note that the Jewish meaning of "messiah" and the Christian meaning differ.) Where did you pick up this tidbit? As an Orthodox Jew, I have never heard anything of the sort. Puskrat- Why shouldn't Israel be called Israel? |
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Some people say we no jews in China. We have orange jews, apple jews and pineapple jews. Juice joke set aside, there are Jews in China who have been assimilated. Except for the skull cap and restriction on pork, they didn't know they were Jewish. Many who emmigrated to America rediscovered their Jewish roots and have embraced Judism. |
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Some people say we no jews in China. We have orange jews, apple jews and pineapple jews. Juice joke set aside, there are Jews in China who have been assimilated. Except for the skull cap and restriction on pork, they didn't know they were Jewish. Many who emmigrated to America rediscovered their Jewish roots and have embraced Judism. When Marco Polo traveled to China he was surprised to find a thriving population of non-assimilated Jews in Beijing. |
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Quoted:
I have a question for the Hive tonight. All my years of studying History and the Bible have taught me that the word "Jew" comes from the word "Judah". There were 12 tribes and only one "Judah". My question is why is EVERYBODY from Israel called a "jew" when it is meant only for the ones from the tribe of "Judah"? The rest, in my opinion should be called Israeli's. Just a question I have wondered over the years. Maybe someone here can give some insight on this and NOT slam the Scriptures.
Anyone full blooded Jew here? Thanks fellas in advance. At some point it became slang for all religious Hebrews. People from Israel are Israelis because some are secular and others are Christians and Muslims. Most of them are Jews but not all. |
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The tribes of the northern kingdom were not scattered. They didn’t go anywhere. They stayed right where they were and got assimilated by the Assyrians.
The invading Assyrian army that conquered them behaved in much the same way as the Spanish did in South and Central America. They didn’t carry the people away to a far off kingdom like the Babylonians did and they didn’t push the local people out and colonize like the British did in North America. Instead the Assyrians put most of the men to the sword, stayed put and forcibly took the local women for their wives. Within a few generations no one was left in the northern kingdom without Assyrian blood. The southern kingdom saw these people of a polluted bloodline as mongrels. They felt they were no longer true children of Israel and called them Samaritans. That is why the story of the Good Samaritan was insulting to the Pharisees. Christ was saying look even this mongrel has more compassion than you. |
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Quoted:
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I believe Haile Selassi claimed to be decended from the ten tribes as well.
Close. The claim was that he was descended from a royal line began by Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Cyrus diverted some of the water and walked under the walls into the city while Nebuchadnezzar's grandson (Belshazzar) was throwing a party. It took the people of Babylon 3 days before they knew they were conquered.
Well, in an interesting turn of events, the new rulers let the Hebrews return home but the biggest tribe they had was Judah which was eventually shorted to "Jew." This is why Cyrus the Great is considered a messiah by Jews. (Note that the Jewish meaning of "messiah" and the Christian meaning differ.) Where did you pick up this tidbit? As an Orthodox Jew, I have never heard anything of the sort. Puskrat- Why shouldn't Israel be called Israel? I would also be interested in hearing more about this. Of course, as someone who attends a Reconstructionist synagogue I spend more time hearing about social justice and global warming than our religious roots 
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At some point it became slang for all religious Hebrews. People from Israel are Israelis because some are secular and others are Christians and Muslims. Most of them are Jews but not all. Yep, that's why the alternative to Jew would not be Israeli (modern), but Israelite (ancient). |
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I don't think there are very many full blooded Jews anymore. There are around 16 million of us on this planet. Granted, that a very small percentage, But our contributions to Business, Science, and Medicine make us one of the most well known people of the day. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I don't think there are very many full blooded Jews anymore. There are around 16 million of us on this planet. Granted, that a very small percentage, But our contributions to Business, Science, and Medicine make us one of the most well known people of the day. Ashkenazis don't count |
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I don't think there are very many full blooded Jews anymore. There are around 16 million of us on this planet. Granted, that a very small percentage, But our contributions to Business, Science, and Medicine make us one of the most well known people of the day. Ashkenazis don't count I see. So which Jews do count? The tan and brown ones? |
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Quoted: Ten tribes "disapeared" in captivity. The Northern Kingdom-Israel minus Judah, went into a different captivity than the Southern kingdom-Judah, some Levites, and another tribe. They didn't make it out. The practice at the time was to call one Kingdom Judah, and the other Israel, more or less short for "the rest of Israel". They were hostile or at war most of the time after Solomon. The people you see are Jews, Judans. Cohen is priest, I believe, a part of the Levi tribe. The Israelis were assimiliated. Resistance was futile. Many wonderful legends of arisen from this. One is the Ango-American-Israel cult which says the ten tribes relocated to the British isles. I believe Haile Selassi claimed to be decended from the ten tribes as well. This is probably rooted in the same story as the Ark (of the Covenant, not the boat) being somewhere in East Africa. Some people say Mormon doctrine places the Native Americans as the decendants of the lost tribes. The idea of the tribes wandering around looking for a home shows up again in a little teledrama called "Battlestar Galatica". The error is not in calling Jews Jews, but in calling Israel Israel. It should probably be called Judah. Good luck getting that through the Knesset. I wonder if anyone bothered to ask the American Indians about this? |
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This is why Cyrus the Great is considered a messiah by Jews. (Note that the Jewish meaning of "messiah" and the Christian meaning differ.) Where did you pick up this tidbit? As an Orthodox Jew, I have never heard anything of the sort. Isaiah 45: and Ezra 1. |
| I always thought that a Jew was someone who practiced the Jewish religion just like a Catholic is someone who practices Catholicism. A person born in Israel to Jewish parents but who converted to Christianity wouldn't be a Jew, would they? They would be an Israeli Christian. And if I, a Lutheran, converted to Judaism, then I would then be a Jew, correct? |
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i am jewish and as far as i know full blooded jewish.
jewish does mean two different things and they seem to be getting very mixed up here. there is a a semitic race called jews and there is a religion called judaism, judaism accepts converts but doesnt look for them a convert who marries into a jewish family s NOT diluting the bloodline as it is a religion. judaism is also a matrilineal religion so i find it hard to see how the pharisees looked at the samaritans as a mongrel race of jews in the story with jesus quoted above. if i remember my navi(prophets) correctly the 10 tribes were carried off into exile and the people that settled in the area were the samaritans( who are probably the garndparents of the palestinians of today). during the pogroms that took place regularly in eastern europe, rape was quite common and the children of rape and thier mothers were not driven from the communties and looked at as mongrels rather it was an accepted risk of the times and sometimes children were born of it. the matrilineal part was a survival mechanism of the religion as far as i can see. there is plenty more i could say on the subject but i have to go to work. |
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Quoted: Quoted: At some point it became slang for all religious Hebrews. People from Israel are Israelis because some are secular and others are Christians and Muslims. Most of them are Jews but not all. Yep, that's why the alternative to Jew would not be Israeli (modern), but Israelite (ancient). Wouldn't any citizen of the nation of Israel, regardless of religious belief, be considered "Israeli"? There are, after all, Jews, Christians, Muslims....many faiths, who are citizens of the state of Israel. |
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This is why Cyrus the Great is considered a messiah by Jews. (Note that the Jewish meaning of "messiah" and the Christian meaning differ.) Where did you pick up this tidbit? As an Orthodox Jew, I have never heard anything of the sort. Isaiah 45: and Ezra 1. He was 'Annointed' but he wasn't Mohshiach. The Mohshiach must bring all Jews together in the service of HaShem and he clearly didn't do that. |
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Puskrat- Why shouldn't Israel be called Israel? Because of the "scattering/missingness/diaspora/samaritanization" of most of the nation. What we call Israel fairly accurately approximates the geography of David's kingom, but is essentially populated by Judah, rather than by all 12/13 tribes. |
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This is why Cyrus the Great is considered a messiah by Jews. (Note that the Jewish meaning of "messiah" and the Christian meaning differ.) Where did you pick up this tidbit? As an Orthodox Jew, I have never heard anything of the sort. Isaiah 45: and Ezra 1. He was 'Annointed' but he wasn't Mohshiach. The Mohshiach must bring all Jews together in the service of HaShem and he clearly didn't do that. A tricky distinction considering the literal meaning of Messiah. 
ETA not disagreeing with you, it's just funny. |