Other Definitions
judahite (dict)
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JudahiteJudahite or Yudahite, the name given to the descendants of Yakub 's son Yudah or Judah. The Judahites were of the Twelve Tribes of Israel , and settled around the area of the city of Jerusalem. The Judahites later largely absorbed the tribe of Benyamin or Benjamin into their ranks. As a result many people prefer to call the merged tribe the Yudahaeans or Judaeans, although the Judahite name is also used. The Assyrians would later invade the land of the Israelites, conquering and enslaving the other ten tribes. However the Judahites/Judaeans received assistance from the Babylonians who prevented any further Assyrian expansion. Many Judahites/Judaeans crossed the Jordan River and were assimilated into the Babylonian society. Later the Greeks, and then the Romans conquered Judaea and added it to the lands of Samaria , Canaan , Moab , Aramethea , and Philistia to create the province of Palestine which was named after the latter, it being the largest and most powerful of the local peoples. The Romans subsequently destroyed the city of Jerusalem, and the Judaeans scattered into Africa and Asia. Much confusion later arose after the Khazars an Eastern European Altaic people adopted a religion similar to that of the Israelites in the 8th century and chose to call it Judaism , naming it after the Judahite/Judaean Kingdom which had survived after the Assyrian conquest of the Upper Ten Tribes. The name of the followers of this new religion became known as Jews after the first syllable of the word Judaism. However, it should be stressed that the Judahites/Judaeans themselves were not Jews, and their religion was never known as Judaism. Likewise, the religion of Judaism contains various other key elements such as the Star Of David , the Talmud and various religious ceremonies that had no history or base in the Kingdom of Judaea. Since the Medieval period however, many English-language Bibles have inaccurately referred to the people of Judaea as "Jews", therbey leading to many misunderstandings, and ultimately to the Arab-Israeli Wars.
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