Who is a Judean? Who is a “Jew”?

Only these persons may be defined as Judeans:

1.  A member of Judah’s tribe, when the Hebrew people was divided into tribes.

2.  An inhabitant of Judea country when it existed as a state entity.

In the Diaspora, the Hebrews were also called Judeans (Yehudim) as deportees from Judea to the exile, “galut”, and this name gradually became a synonym for people without a country, without a national identity, without national aspirations, without national leadership, belonging to religious congregations and subordinated to rabbis, – we became “galutean” Judeans (“Yehudim Galutyim”).

Since in our days a state entity named Judea does not exist, and since we are not members of Judah’s tribe, and since we have reconstituted the Hebrew national state, the Hebrew national culture and the Hebrew national institutions, only the Hebrew identity is of actual significance and validity.

It is important to mention that, throughout history, the anti-Semites adopted pejorative and offending names towards the Hebrews, derived from the word Judean, like: Jew, Jude, Juif, Jidan11).  We, the Hebrews of our days,  should not accept, and, of course, should not use, the above pejorative names: We are Hebrews, Hebräer, Hebreux, Ebrei etc., as the ethnic Hebrew actually calls himself in Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria (Evrei), in Romania (Evreu or Ebreu), in Italy (Ebreo), etc.

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11)     In certain languages, like Russian and Romanian, both denominations exist: one used by the ethnic Hebrews and by people who respect them, the translation of the word “Yvri”, Hebrew, such as Evreu, Evrei etc., and the second, pejorative, used by the anti-Semites, created from the word “Yehudi”, Judean, such as Jidan, Jid etc. In most countries of Western Europe two denominations were in use, e.g., in Old French, which migrated to Britain with the Norman Conquest, there was the respectable Ebreu opposite the pejorative Gyu (and Giu), which became “Jew” in English, but the use of the denomination Ebreu  ceased with the aggravation of  anti-Semitism during the Crusades. In Italian, there is only one term: “Ebreo”.

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