This can be confusing to readers who mistakenly assume that the words “Jew” and “Israelite” are synonymous. In the course of their long history, the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel were joined as part of a single kingdom only very briefly for a period of about 80 years during the reigns of David and Solomon. After that, civil war split the kingdom. Descendants of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin formed the southern kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem as their capital. Descendants of the 10