society
names of the Jewish people
עברי · עבר · ישראל · בני ישראל · יהודי · יהודה
Bottom line
Ivri is Hebrew, first applied to Avraham; Yisrael and Bnei Yisrael are Israel and the Children of Israel, the Torah's ordinary name for the nation; Yehudi is Jew, strictly a subject of the Kingdom of Yehudah before it became the name of the whole people. The one thing not to get wrong is that these are not interchangeable registers of the same word: Rabbeinu Bachya holds Ivri marks a lower standing than Yisrael, which is why the Torah keeps eved Ivri for the Jewish slave even after Sinai, by which point the term had otherwise largely fallen out of use in Tanach.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| עברי | ivri | Hebrew | Avraham on the other side of the world (Bereishis Rabbah); lower standing (Rabbeinu Bachya) |
| עבר | ever | side, far side | a side of a scale, or the far bank of the Euphrates; also a name |
| ישראל | yisrael | Israel, Israelite | the nation's standard name, from Yaakov's second name; the higher standing |
| יהודי | yehudi | Jew | originally the citizen of the southern kingdom only |
| יהודה | yehudah | Judah | named for Leah's hodaah, her thanks (Bereishis 29:35) |
Where the authorities disagree
Why Avraham is called HaIvri (Bereishis 14:13). Bereishis Rabbah 42:8 gives three views: that the whole world stood on one ever, one side of the scale, and Avraham on the other, and his stature balanced it; that it is a genealogical marker, Avraham being descended from Ever, Shem's great-grandson (Bereishis 11:21-24); that it records his Mesopotamian origin from the far ever of the Euphrates, and that he spoke the Ivri tongue. Pesikta Rabbasi 33 adds a fourth: when the whole world served idols and Avraham held apart, he was called Ivri for taking the opposite side of that question. Shemos Rabbah 3:8 reads the name of the nation prospectively, Ivriim because they were to cross over (she'avru) the sea. The Bottom line does not choose among them, since all four give the same English; a derashah in hand decides which is live.
Distinctions
The column takes its three questions from an exchange on the Los Angeles subway, where a friendly stranger asked the author and his wife whether they were Amish and he answered, "Nah, we're Hebrews": why are Jews called Hebrews, why are they called Jews, and what does the biblical "Israelites" mean?
Ivri (עברי) and ever (עבר)
The first man in the Torah called an Ivri is Avraham, in the refugee's report of Lot's capture (Bereishis 14:13-14). The word rests on ever, a side or a far bank, and every reading in the midrashim above takes it from there, whether the side of a scale, the far side of a river, or the far side of an argument. Rabbeinu Bachya (to Shemos 21:6): Ivri connotes a lower spiritual level than Yisrael, which is why a Jewish bondsman is still an eved Ivri after Sinai, though the term had by then largely dropped from use. A slave lives on a lower plane than a free man, so the older, lower name suits him.
Yisrael (ישראל) and Bnei Yisrael (בני ישראל)
Bnei Yisrael appears 636 times in Tanach and Yisrael as a name for the people over two thousand. It is Yaakov's second name used as a patronym, so the nation is Yisrael or the sons of Yisrael. Through most of Tanach this, and not Ivri, is what the people are called, on Rabbeinu Bachya's account because it is the name of the higher standing. Note for a translator that "Israelite" and "Israeli" are not the same word in English: the second means a citizen of the modern state.
Yehudi (יהודי) and Yehudah (יהודה)
After Shlomo HaMelech the kingdom split: Yehudah in the south, the tribes of Yehudah and Binyamin under the house of David, and Yisrael in the north with the remaining ten tribes. The gentilic Yehudi belonged strictly to a subject of the southern kingdom. The north fell to Ashur and its tribes were exiled to parts unknown; well over a century later Bavel took the south and exiled its people, and when Persia succeeded Bavel and permitted the return, the semi-independent province was Yehud Medinata, the State of Yehudah. Centuries later Rome named that territory Judea, until it rebranded it Syria Palaestina after the Bar Kochba revolt. From Yehudi through Greek Ioudaios, which dropped the h-sound, and Old French giu, which dropped the d-sound, comes the English "Jew"; many other European languages kept the d. The column notes in passing that the earliest appearance of Ioudaios is in the so-called Moschos Inscription, a stele erected in honor of the Greek gods by a Jew turned Hellene named Moschos. The name itself is Leah's: she called her fourth son Yehudah, the forebear of the Davidic line, as an expression of hodaah, thanks to Hashem for granting her a fourth son (Bereishis 29:35). The column closes with a story: Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, debating a radical secular Israeli who denied the Jewishness of the State of Israel, is reported to have answered that one who speaks of French and Spanish and Italian nationals while denying the nationhood of the Jewish people should know that in America there are Hebrew Nationals too, and at least they claim their baloney is kosher.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: English "Jew" will absorb all three. In a Chumash context it is almost always wrong: the people are Bnei Yisrael, "the Children of Israel," and Yehudi does not yet mean what it later means.
- Eved Ivri is "Hebrew bondsman" or "Hebrew slave," never "Jewish slave." The word choice is the whole of Rabbeinu Bachya's point.
- Where a passage sets Ivri against Yisrael deliberately (Rabbeinu Bachya's reading, or a shmuess on Avraham standing alone), keep "Hebrew" and "Israel" as two distinct English words and do not smooth either to "Jew."
- Where a later sefer of Tanach uses Yehudim of the people at large rather than of subjects of the southern kingdom, "Jews" is right and "Judahites" would be pedantic.
- Render ever by what the derashah needs: "side" for the scale, "the other side" for the river, and let the name Ever stand as a name.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Names of a People," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 11 Cheshvan 5779 (2018-10-20): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7961-names-of-a-people.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 11:21-24, 14:13-14, 29:35; Shemos 21:6; Bereishis Rabbah 42:8; Pesikta Rabbasi 33; Shemos Rabbah 3:8; Rabbeinu Bachya to Shemos 21:6. Two notes on the loci: the column gives Bereishis 11:21-24 for Ever's genealogy, but Ever is born and named at 11:14-17, and 11:21-24 covers Reu, Serug and Nachor; the entry keeps the column's citation and flags the slip here rather than correcting it silently. An earlier draft's rendering bullet naming Megillas Esther and Sefer Yirmiyahu for the generalized Yehudim has been generalized, since the column cites neither.