Who are the People of Israel?

"The question of national identity--the attempt to fathom the entangled relations between Israel and God, between Israel and other nations--is one of the most resonant and unresolvable questions in the Bible. In tackling it, the biblical text relies not on philosophical contemplation but rather on narrative."--Ilana Pardes, Imagining the Birth of Ancient Israel in Cultures of the Jews: A New History, David Biale (ed.) at 10.

The People of Israel are Descendants of Shem but the People of Israel are not "Semites"

AntiSemitism, Deborah Lipstadt at 23: "The word "Semitic" was coined in 1781 by a German historian to describe a group of languages that originated in the Middle East and that have some linguistic similarities; they include Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, ancient Akkadian, and Ugaritic. These's nothing that bind the speakers of these different languages together as a people."

Semites, Encyclopedia Judaica, Moshe Greenberg, "Early in the development of modern ethnology, it was realized that the list in Genesis (Gen. 10:21-31) combines peoples that sometimes have nothing in common but geographic propinquity. "Semite" was then defined by the supposed physical characteristics of the chief surviving representatives of the lists, the Jews and the Arabs: dolichocephalic skulls; curly and abundant hair, slight wavy or straight strong beard, predominantly black; prominent (straight or acquiline) nose; oval face. The problematic nature and evil results of earlier racial theories have led to a restriction of the terms Semite and Semitic in careful modern usage to linguistic categories. Aside from biblical referent, the linguistic is the only modern scholarly-scientific use of the term.

Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, Robert Wistrich, at xvi: "Antisemitism--a term which came into general use as part of [a] politically motivated anti-Jewish campaign of the 1880s--was never directed against 'Semites' as such. The term 'Semetic' derived from the Biblical Shem, one of Noah's three sons, and designated a group of cognate languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Babylonian, Assyrian and Ethiopic, rather than an ethnic or racial group. Similarly, the contrasting term 'Aryan' or 'Indo-European', which became popular at this time, referrred originally to the Indian branch of the Indo-European languages....Nevertheless, in the late nineteenth century this pseudo-scientific nonsense became eminently respectable even among the European intellectual elites, so that the distinction between 'Aryan' and 'Semetic' was easily grafted on to the much older distinction between Christian and Jew. As a result, for the last hundred years, the illogical term 'antisemitism', which never really meant hatred of 'Semites' (for example, Arabs) at all, but rather hatred of Jews, has come to be accepted in general usage as denoting all forms of hostility towards Jews and Judaism throughout history.

Subversive Sequels in the Bible, Judy Klitsner, at 44: "Since God wishes for human autonomy, any attempt to suppress the divine spark of individuality, such as the collective action of the tower builders, constitutes a rebellion against God. As the Mishnah states, "God has stampled each individual with the imprint of Adam, and there is no one person who is identical to another" (Sanhedrin 4:5). It is thus a religious imperative to maintain one's singularity. One aspect of the people's rebellion against God lies in their attempts at effacing the individual. Their attempts constitute a negation of God's plan for humanity to be unique as God is unique."

Ilana Pardes, Imagining the Birth of Ancient Israel, in Culture of the Jews: A New History, David Biale (ed.) at 9: "In the episode following the Tower of Babel, God demands that Abraham leave his birthplace (Ur of the Chaldeans) and go forth (lekh lekha) to the land shown to him There, God assures him, "I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great" (Genesis 12:2). Abraham's migration to Canaan offers offers a new departure. Whereas the sinful homegeneous community of Babel failed, Abraham's descendants, the people God has chosen frum a multitude of peoples, seem to hold much promise, destined as they are (unlike the builders of the Tower) to acquire a "great name." The primary exile of the first patriarch, his capacity to part from his cultural origins, is construed as an essential rift, a prerequisite for the rise of the nation.

The Beginning of Desire, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg at 74: "Here begins the journey of lekh lekha (12:1)--with its strange order of abandonments--first land, then community ("moladetkha"--again, the vlad root: "Leave that which produced you as one possible realization of its potential") and, finally, father's house. For the first time, a journey is undertaken not as an act of exile and diminution (Adam. Cain, and the dispersed generation of Babel), but as a response to a divine imperative that articulates and emphasizes displacement as its crucial experience."

עברי Probably Doesn't Refer to the Hebrew Language in this Context

Hebrew Between Cultures, Meir Sternberg, at 1-2: "In its rare reflexsive moments, the Bible never calls its language "Hebrew" as we anachronists have been doing for over two thousand years. The term employed is rather "the tongue of Canaan [sephat kena'an] or Judahite/Judaean/Jewish [yehudit]."....Whichever term or period you take, the Bible knows no such language as "Hebrew." Nor does the Bible usually refer to the native speakers of its language as "Hebrews [Ivrim]" but as "Sons of Israel [bene yisra'el]," "Israelites," or, later, "Judahites/Judeans/Jews [yehudim]."....While the Bible's rule of nonHebrewing the language has no exceptions, the lexical norm of group reference is apparently broken to manifest Hebrewness about thirty times; and its breach has long exercised scholars--with reason, considering the issues at stake. Who are the Bible's Hebrews? What and how does the name (or epithet) signify?

Who Were the Hebrews?, Dr. Albert D. Friedberg: "Many modern scholars have argued that the term ivri is cognate with the Akkadian term Ḥabiru/Apiru, a group of people of lower economic and social standing who roamed the vast plains of Mitanni, Syria, and Palestine as serfs, brigands, half-citizens, and mercenaries through the second millennia and until the onset of the Iron Age. While there is no scholarly consensus regarding the identification of ivri with Ḥabiru, scholars agree that these Ḥabiru were not Israelites per se, or any other specific ethnic group. Instead, nearly all scholars today would agree with Nadav Naaman’s statement that, [O]ne may safely conclude that the people designated as Habiru, who appeared at different places at different times in various Western Asiatic regions, had nothing in common apart from their similar social status. Each society had its own Habiru-people. [footnotes omitted]

https://thetorah.com/who-were-the-hebrews/

Subversive Sequels in the Bible, Judy Klitsner, at 41-2: God commands Abraham to leave behind everything that is familiar and to embark on a path that is uniquely his (Gen. 12:1). And in fact, throughout his trials, Abraham maintains his solitary stance, earning the title "Abraham the Ivri, Hebrew (14:13), a term that throughout the Bible suggests singularity and otherness." (42n.26: "This interpretation is supported by the use of the term Ivri throughout the Bible to denote Israelites as a group distinct from their surroundings.")

The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, Nahum Sarna, at 404-5: "The precise understanding of this name is impeded by many difficulties, not the least being that it grammatical structure has no exact analogue among biblical personal names....None of the suggestions proposed to explain the verbal elements has yielded satisfaction. Until more philological evidence is forthcoming, the true explanation escapes us. It is worth noting that in biblical times there already seem to have been traditions connecting the name yisra'el with either sovereignty or rectitude. Hosea 12:5, in reference to our narrative, says of Jacob va-yasar, which can only derive from s-w-r, "to have dominion," as proven by Judges 9:22 and Hosea 8:4. This suggests that the prophet took the name to mean "He had dominion over a divine being."

The Culture of the Jews: A New History, David Biale (ed.), Imagining the Birth of Ancient Israel, Ilana Pardes at 123. "The metaphor of birth is probably the most resonant anthropomorphic image in national narrative from antiquity to modern times. In fact, it is so resonant one tends to forget that nations are not born literally but are, rather, imagined in these terms. Every nation, however, has its own birth story, or birth stories. The book of Exodus provides an intriguingly complex representation of Israel's birth in keeping with the preliminary imaginings of the nation in Genesis. The opening verses of Exodus 1 make clear that God's reiterated promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--the grand national annunciation scenes of Genesis--are finally realized. The descendants of Jacob, whose names are listed solemnly, multiply at an uncanny pace and turn into a "mighty" nation: the nation of the "children of Israel" "Israel" for the first time is not merely Jacob's second, elevated, name but rather a collective designation of a burgeoning community that fills the land."

Kol Dodi Dofek, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: "In order to explain the difference between a People of Fate and a Nation of Destiny it is appropriate to deal with a different contrast--that between an Encampment and a Congregation....An Encampment is born out of the terror of destruction and loss, from the fear that fate is overwhelming. From the midst of the Encampment, the People arises. In the beginning, the Jews in Egypt were an Encampment. When they were freed by the Holy One, they rose to the level of a nation. Indeed, the Congregation has a special place in the kingdom of man and in his mighty spirit. The Congregation is man's characteristic creation, and his glorious persona hovers over it. The Congregation is not created as a result of negative causes or out of fear of the fate that pursues man, who senses his own misery and feeblemenss, but rather as a result of postive impulses. Destiny is the foundation of the Congregation. A Congregation is a collection of individuals with a single past, a common future, shared aspirations, identical yearnings for a world that is totally good and pleasant. and a singular and harmonious destiny....A Congregation is a holy nation that does not fear fate and does not live against its will. It believes in its destiny and of its free will sanctifies itself for its realization. The Covenant of Egypt was made with a people that was born in the Encampment, the Covenant of Sinai was concluded with a holy people."

Culture of the Jews: A New History, Introduction to Part One: Mediterranean Origins, David Biale at 3: "The earliest mention of ancient Israel appears on a stele or victory monument of the Pharaoh Merneptah in the second half of the thirteenth entury B.C.E. There the pharaoh boasts: "Israel is laid waste, his seed is no more." An inauspicious beginning for a people that was to last over three millennia after their proclaimed extermination!

Encyclopedia Judaica, "Jew" (Yehoshua M. Grintz) "The word "Jew" passed into the English language from the Greek (Ioudaios) by way of the Latin (Judaeus), and is found in early English (from the about the year 1000) in a variety of forms: Iudea, Gyu, Giu, Iuw, Iew, which developed into "Jew." The word "Jew" therefore, is ultimately traced to the Hebrew Yehudi, a term which originally applied to members of the tribe of Judah, the fourth son of the patriarch, Jacob. The term was also utilized for those who dwelt in the area of the tribe of Judah, and thus later, during the seven years that David reigned in Hebron, his territory was called the Kingdom of Judah (II Sam. 5:5 [above]). Later still, with the split of the kingdom during the reign of Rehoboam, the Northern Kingdom was called Israel and the Southern was called Judah, although it also encompassed the territory of the tribe of Benjamin (1 Kings 12:16-21 [above]). From that time on the term "Yehudi" applied to all residents of the Southern Kingdom, irrespective of their tribal status. After the destruction of Israel only Judah remained, and the term "Yehudi" or "Jew" then lost its specific connection with the Southern Kingdom.

The Beginnings of Jewishness, Shaye J.D. Cohen at 104-5: "Greek Ioudaios, Latin Iudaeus, and Hebrew Yehudi are almost always translated as "Jew," but in all occurrences of the term before the end of the second century B.C.E. this translation is wrong, because before that point these words always and everywhere mean "Judean," not "Jew." "Judaean" is an ethnic-geographical term: a Judean is a member of the Judaean people (ethnos) and hails from Judaea, the ethnic homeland. In the diaspora a "Judaean" is a member of an association of those who hailed originally from the ethnic homeland; a person might be a Judaean even if he or she had not been born in Judaea or ever set foot there. Like all other ethnic-geographic groups, Judaeans have their own language, customs, institutions, dress, cuisine, religion, and so on, but no one of these characteristics is necessarily more important thanany other in defining a "Judaean." Texts describing Judaeans may deal with their religion or way of life, but this fact does not change the primary meaning of the concept "Judaean." In contrast, "Jew" (at least in English) is a religious term: a Jew is someone who venerates the God of the Judaeans, the God whose temple is in Jerusalem (the capital of Judaea). "Jew," then, denotes culture, way of life, or "religion," not ethnic or geographic origin."

The Beginnings of Jewishness, Shaye J.D. Cohen at 105-6: "Out of the clash between Judaism (the ways of the Judaeans) and Hellenism (the way of the Greeks) emerged two new definitions of [the Greek] Ioudaios that for the first time allowed gentiles the opportunity to join the Judaean people. The first definition was political; the Judaeans form a political community and could extend citizenship even to nonnatives. Such newly enfranchised citizens became themselves became Ioudaioi or Judaeans. They still retained their prior ethnicity and much of their prior religion and culture, but they joined the Judaean people and declared loyalty to the God of the Judaeans....The second definition was cultural (or "religious"); the Judaeans form a religious community and could extend membership to nonnatives who believe in the God of the Judaeans and observe his precepts. A non-Judaean could become a Ioudaios by joining the Judaeans in venerating the one true God, the God whose temple is in Jerusalem. Second Maccabees 6:6 and 9:17 [6:5 and 9:22 above in the Hebrew], the first witness to this new conception and new terminology, mark an important turning point in the history of the word Ioudaios and, indeed, in the history of Judaism. As is well known, 2 Maccabees is the first work to use the word Ioudaismos. We are tempted, of course, to translate this as "Judaism, but this translation is too narrow, because in this first instance of the term, Ioudaismos has not yet been reduced to a designation of a religion. It means rather "the aggregate of all those characteristics that make Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish."....The creation of the word Ioudaismos is an important moment in the development of Jewish self-identity and in the birth of Jewishness, but even more strking is the use of the old word Ioudaios in a new way. Second Maccabees is the first work to use Ioudaismos and the first work to use Ioudaios in the sense of "Jew.""