From Judah to Jew

cog·nate
1. LINGUISTICS
(of a word) having the same linguistic derivation as another; from the same original word
or root (e.g., English is, German ist, Latin est, from Indo-European esti):
"the term is obviously cognate with the Malay segan"
2. FORMAL
related; connected:
"cognate subjects such as physics and chemistry"

cognate definition - Search (bing.com)

English Hebrew Yiddish

‫יהודה‬
Judah ‫ְהּודה‬
ָ ‫י‬
ihudh

‫יהודה‬
Judahite ‫יהודי‬
ihudh

‫יהודה‬
Judean ‫ְהּודה‬
ָ ‫י‬
ihudh

‫איד‬
Jew ‫ְהּודי‬
ִ ‫י‬
id

‫ייִדיש‬
Jewish ‫ְהּודי‬
ִ ‫י‬
eydish

The letter J was derived from the letter I and was initially used interchangeably
with it. In English the letter J started to gain prominence in the 16th century.
Prior to that, words we now spell with a J were typically spelled with an I or Y.
For example, “John” was often spelled “Iohn” or “Yohn” 1

John Wycliffe, an English reformer and theologian of the 14th century. The
first complete English-language version of the Bible dates from 1382 and was
credited to John Wycliffe and his followers.2

In any case, as the new, religiously defined Jewish identity eventually replaced
the old, tribal based Judahite one32, the tribal traditions of the Benjaminites died
out as well. As noted above, the post-exilic prophets do not make the distinction
between Judah and Benjamin.

32 These, too, are of course modern definitions, but they are useful for our purposes. Judahite means

someone or something pertaining to the pre-exilic tribe and kingdom of Judah (cf. Rendsburg,
Israelian Hebrew Features in Genesis 49, 163, who writes of Judahite Hebrew, as opposed to Israelian
Hebrew). Judean is the same, pertaining to the post-exilic province or state of Yehud/Judah/Judea,
though R.C. Head (Dynamics of Diselection, Ambiguity in Genesis 12–36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post
Exilic Judah, 2001, 16ff.) has used Yehudian to describe the former. The term Jewish is used for the
worldwide religious community. These distinctions are lacking in Hebrew, where the word ‫יהודי‬
encompasses all three meanings. Modern Israeli scholars have, in recent years, coined the term ‫יהודאי‬
as an equivalent of Judahite.”3

In this book “Judahite” is used as an adjective for terms relating to the kingdom
of Judah (also described here as the “southern kingdom’), e.g., Judahite pottery.
“Judean’ is used to refer to geographical regions, such as the Judean Desert.
“Israel’ generally refers to the northern kingdom, while “ancient Israel” refers to
the Iron Age people—north and south combined. In “two Hebrew kingdoms” I
ostensibly adhere to the ideology of later Judahite-Judean authors but at the
same time acknowledge both the proximities and differences in their material
culture and cognitive world (see more in Finkelstein 1999a).4

first bible translated to english - Search (bing.com)

2
3
Joseph, Judah and the Benjamin Conundrum, By Yigal Levin, pg. 230-1
4
Israel Finklestein, The Forgotten Kingdom, footnote, pg. 1
In any case, the word “Yisrael” remained the most common term for referring to
the people for many years after the Tannaitic period. Alongside it, there was less
common usage of the term “Jews”, and both continued to be used in their ethnic,
cultural, historic, and religious connotations. As to the question of when the
term “Jew” again became the word most identified with these meanings, we do
not possess a clear answer. 5

Yiddish (‫ייִ דיש‬, ‫ יידיש‬or ‫אידיש‬, yidish or idish, pronounced [ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. 'Jewish';
ַ -‫ייִ דיש‬, Yidish-Taytsh, lit. 'Judeo-German')[9] is a West Germanic language
‫טײטש‬
historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century[10]
Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular
based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew (notably
Mishnaic) and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include
elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance
languages.[11][12][13] Yiddish is primarily written in the Hebrew alphabet.

Prior to World War II, its worldwide peak was 11 million,[14] with the number
of speakers in the United States and Canada then totaling 150,000.[15] Eighty-
five percent of the approximately six million Jews who were murdered in the
Holocaust were Yiddish speakers,[16] leading to a massive decline in the use of
the language. Assimilation following World War II and aliyah (immigration to
Israel) further decreased the use of Yiddish among survivors after adapting to
Hebrew in Israel.6

Looking at the etymology of the words Jew and Jewish in the chart above, it
seems certain that they are cognates of Yiddish, not Hebrew. This means that
their usage only takes us back to 9th century German Ashkenazis who observed
Judaism. It does not relate to the Biblical or historical pre-9th century people who
were known as Ivrim or Yehudim, because it was known that they claimed to be
the seed of someone called Abraham from their history and he was called an Ivri,
who had a son named Yitzchak, who had a son named Yaacob/Ysrael/Jacob, who

5 How Did the Word "Jew" Become Identified with the Jewish People? (hartman.org.il)
6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish
 had 12 sons, one of whom was named Yudah/Judah.

Modern day Jews, therefore, can be considered a recent religion based concept,
not one that directly connects to any land or ancient people, because the term
itself can only take us back to 9th century Ashkenazi Germans who practiced what
is known today as Judaism, which is ironic because the name of the religion does
contain a connection to one of the 12 sons of Yaacob/Jacob/Israel, namely
Yudah/Judah, who ruled over the southern portion of what was called Caanan in
ancient history, which was later named Ysrael/Israel by the Levites who led the
Maccabean rebellion against the Romans, and then given the name Palestinia by
those same Romans after the defeat of the nascent kingdom the Maccabees
established.

To be a Jew or Jewish today is to observe the religion of Judaism, not an ethnic

identity, and no people are recognized as a nation because of the religion they
observe. There has never been a unique, ethnic Jewish people, it has been solely
connected with religion since the term was created. The seed of the patriarch
Yaacob/Jacob/Israel were collectively known as Israel/Israelites or the children
of Israel, they are never in the Old Testament referred to collectively as
Yehudim/Judahites, which was only ever used when referring to members of the
southern region of the land. The Maccabees understood this, as did the
formulators of the Declaration of Independence of the modern state, causing
both to choose the name Israel for the land in which the whole family lived.

True peace can only be achieved through the acceptance of truth and a desire for
justice and equality. The Jewish people today must accept that, as Jews, they do
not represent the entirety of historical or Biblical Israel when it comes to the land
that was promised to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel.

19 say into them: Thus, saith my Lord YHWH: Behold, I will take the
stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel
his companions; and I will put them unto him together with the stick of
Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in My hand.

22 and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of
Israel, and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more
two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at
all.

Ezekiel 37

11.11.23