to within a generation or so of the fall of the Second Temple. The name בני ישראל, originally probably a sociopolitical designation, eventually became a religious designation, as the people became identified as a political unit and the political unit became identified with its established religion and its God. Even after the united monarchy split into Israel and Judah, and after the Assyrian imperial greed and cruelty put an end to Israel as a state, the citizens of Judah continued to be called Israel