Where do Jews come from?

Abraham and the patriarchs

The Torah tells that God said to Abraham: “Go forth from your land… to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Abraham left Haran for Canaan, the land promised to his descendants. His grandson Jacob was renamed Israel, and his twelve sons became the tribes of Israel. After slavery in Egypt and the Exodus, the people received the Torah at Sinai and settled the land.

From Judah to “Jew”

Jacob’s fourth son was Judah (Yehudah). After the kingdom split, the southern kingdom around Jerusalem was called Judah, and its people Yehudim. When the Babylonians exiled them in 586 BCE, the name stuck to the whole people – the Book of Esther already calls Mordechai “a Jewish man” (ish Yehudi).

Exile and return

After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, most Jews lived in the diaspora: Babylonia, the Mediterranean, then Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The main groups today are Ashkenazim (from Central and Eastern Europe), Sephardim (from Spain and Portugal) and Mizrachim (from the Middle East and North Africa), along with Yemenite, Ethiopian, Indian and other communities. Throughout, Jews prayed facing Jerusalem, and in the modern era many returned to the Land of Israel.