Jews vs. Israelites? An Introduction to the Lost Tribes of Israel
All Jews are Israelites. Are all Israelites Jews? Scholars have long debated this question. Can we really know the answer?
By Christopher Eames
From the July-August 2026 Let the Stones Speak Magazine Issue
What is the difference between the terms Jews and Israelites? It is a common assumption that these terms are perfectly interchangeable and refer to exactly the same group of people. Many believe that all Jews are Israelites and that all Israelites are Jews.
These terms are preloaded with significant historical meaning and weight. They are also indelibly connected to one of the great enduring biblical mysteries—that of the “lost 10 tribes” of Israel.
Let’s start with the basics. The biblical name Israel was first applied to the patriarch Jacob and used as an umbrella term for the 12 tribes descending from his 12 sons—aka, Israelites. Israel/Jacob had a son named Judah, who was the patriarch of one of these tribes. This is the name from which the term Jew derives. (This is more obvious in Hebrew than in English: 讬讛讜讚讬, Yehudi—Jew; from 讬讛讜讚讛, Yehuda—Judah. “Judahite” is therefore arguably a better English counterpart to “Israelite.”)
Most will be aware that the original united monarchy of Israel fractured following the reign of King Solomon. At this time, the 10 tribes in the north established the kingdom of Israel, which was led initially by the Ephraimite King Jeroboam i (1 Kings 11:31-35). In the south, the tribe of Judah, ruling from Jerusalem—together with the neighboring smaller tribe of Benjamin and a part of the priestly line of Levi—formed the kingdom of Judah. Israel’s initial united monarchy and eventual split into two distinct kingdoms is well-attested, both biblically and archaeologically (see, for starters, our exhibit issue, “David and Solomon’s Monumental Kingdom”).
The northern kingdom of Israel lasted barely two centuries before being conquered and deported by Assyria in the late eighth century b.c.e. The kingdom of Judah lasted nearly 150 years longer, before being conquered and deported by the Babylonians in the early sixth century b.c.e.
Here’s something many people probably do not know: The very first time the word “Jews” (讬讛讜讚讬诐, Yehudim) appears in the Bible is in the second book of Kings—a full 12 books into the Bible, in a passage of text recording events that occurred near the end of the biblical kingdom period—after Israel’s split into two kingdoms. Even more interestingly, this first time the word is used is describing a conflict between “Israelites” and “Jews”—clearly, two distinct entities, with distinct terminology applied to each.
In this conflict, the “Israelites” of the northern kingdom formed an alliance with Aram (Syria) against the “Jews” from the southern kingdom of Judah: “Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war; and they besieged Ahaz [king of Judah], but could not overcome him. At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath to Aram, and drove the Jews from Elath …” (2 Kings 16:5-6).
This passage continues to document the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians, beginning with Tiglath-Pileser iii in the late 730s b.c.e. and culminating in the total subjugation of the kingdom in 718 b.c.e. The siege of Israel’s capital Samaria (721–718 b.c.e.) was completed by Sargon ii, who deported the Israelite population to the farthest northeastern reaches of the Assyrian Empire, replacing the Israelites—in typical Assyrian fashion—with immigrants from Babylon and elsewhere (2 Kings 17:6, 24; see Sidebar 1, below).
This is the moment the saga of the “lost 10 tribes of Israel” begins. Where did the lost tribes ultimately go? Who are their modern-day descendants? Their identity is not the focus of this article. Rather, its purpose is to introduce the concept of the lost tribes through the use and interpretation of the terms “Jews” and “Israelites.” Why is this important?
It’s important because—despite the obvious ancient distinction between these terms and the peoples they represent—they have come to be used so interchangeably that each has been rendered effectively meaningless. Among scholars there is tremendous confusion and debate about these terms, leading to a significant degree of ignorance and confusion on this pivotal topic of national identity—both ancient and modern.
Amalgamation of Terms—and Peoples?
A case in point: Jewish historian and rabbi Dr. Henry Abramson of Touro University in New York City, in his 2020 lecture “The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel,” described how “Jews were taken from the northern part of the land of Israel” during the Assyrian conquest of the late eighth century b.c.e. He immediately caught himself in his use of the terminology, however, quickly adding: “I tend to use the term ‘Jews’ anachronistically—just forgive me for it—most Jews do that” (emphasis added throughout).
Another case in point comes from Joel Kramer, of the popular YouTube archaeology channel Expedition Bible. In a 2022 episode titled “The 10 Lost Tribes of Israel—Are They Really Lost?” (with nearly a million views), he argued that the “12 tribes of Israel are preserved in a remnant that survived the Assyrian conquest,” made up of “refugees that were fleeing the destruction of the northern kingdom” into Hezekiah’s southern kingdom of Judah, becoming amalgamated into the southern population. As such, with representation of survivors among each of the tribes, Kramer argued that there is “no such thing as the ‘lost’ 10 tribes of Israel”—with the northern representatives now incorporated into Judah (and thus referred to as “Jews”).
Fast-forward to the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon to the Holy Land in the latter part of the sixth century b.c.e. This is the time of the rebuilding of the second temple—the time of Zerubbabel, later Ezra and Nehemiah. The return of the Jews at this time is often assumed to be a fulfillment of the great prophecies of the restoration of wider Israel to their homeland, with the ingathering of the tribes—as above, with the terminology of “Jews” now commonly seen as synonymous with Israel, if they were not already seen as such before.
Yet the genealogies of these returnees make it abundantly obvious: These people descended from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, the tribes that exclusively constituted the southern kingdom of Judah. Their genealogies are clearly documented in passages such as Ezra 1:5, 3:9, 4:1 and 10:9.
Note too, these exiles came from areas within Babylon, not Assyria. And they returned to Judahite locations mainly in and around Jerusalem, not to land or cities in the north (now occupied by the Samaritans).
What about the claim that the 12 tribes were preserved in a remnant that survived the Assyrian conquest? There is some piecemeal archaeological evidence indicating certain northern Israelites fled into Hezekiah’s Judah and Jerusalem at the time of the Assyrian conquest (see here for more detail). But this represented a tiny fraction of the northern kingdom. The annals of Sargon ii, for example, describe his deportation of tens of thousands of captives from his completion of the siege of Samaria alone—the final nail in the coffin following numerous battles and deportations from the time of Tiglath-Pileser iii (see Sidebar 1).
Fast-forwarding another 500 years, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus leaves no room for doubt on this matter. He affirms that there remain only “two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the 10 tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers” (Antiquities 11.5.2).
Bible Aside
Biblically speaking, we do witness a sharp distinction between the use of the terms Israelites and Jews, with the latter terminology used most especially in the works of Jeremiah, Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah—all works following the fall of the northern Israelite kingdom.
Yet modern scholarship is leery of an overemphasis on internal biblical information. After all, as the popular view goes, most of these biblical texts were assembled long after the events they purport to describe anyway—with many believing most of them to have been composed in the post-exilic period. Thus, the Hebrew Bible is a compilation of texts specifically written by Jews, for Jews, about Jews—if you believe it, that is.
Prof. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite represents this critical perspective in The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History:
Derived mainly from the first and second books of Kings, the story [of the divide and collapse of the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah] has been universally regarded by 10-tribes seekers as historical truth. Of course, nearly two centuries of probing biblical criticism and contested biblical archaeology have taught us nothing if not that the biblical narrative cannot be treated as a chronological history narrating the past as it happened.
Indeed, in the case of the biblical narrative with which we’re concerned here, it is important to bear in mind that at least the first part of the actual (as opposed to the prophetic) history of the 10 tribes story (the first book of Kings, which tells the story of the united kingdom created by David and its split into two under his grandson) is considered by biblical scholars to be almost entirely fictional. The second part, found in 2 Kings (which covers the history of the two kingdoms and the deportations of the Israelites), is thought to have been heavily edited and full of interpolations.
For those who subscribe to this (highly contestable) view—divorced from the necessity of taking at face value these biblical texts and instead giving primacy to a much later corpus of Second Temple Period literature and archaeological evidence—a definitional battleground has formed around how the terms “Israel,” “Jews,” etc were being used during these later periods. And for the past century, the scholarly consensus was that the terms Jews and Israelites were indeed being used synonymously to refer to the same group of people at this time.
What is the key source of this consensus? Irony of ironies, it traces back to a radical member of the Nazi Party!
