Is jewish a nationallyity?

Israel is often called the Jewish homeland nowadays. However, being Jewish is not a nationality because they have been dispersed throughout the world for almost two thousand years. Therefore, Jews come from countries all over the world.

The traditional interpretation and the one given in the Torah (the entire body of Jewish teachings, Torah the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, sometimes called the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses) is that the Jews are a nation. In the ancient sense, it means a group of people with a common history, a common destiny, and a sense that they are all connected to each other.

The name Israel is acquired from the name given to Jacob (Genesis 32:29). His 12 sons were the seed of 12 tribes that later expanded into the Jewish nation. The name Jew is derived from Yehuda (Judah) one of the 12 sons of Jacob (Reuben, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Yisachar, Zevulun, Yosef, Binyamin)(Exodus 1:1). So, the names Israel, Israeli or Jewish corresponds to people of the same origin.

Of interest, singer Barbra Streisand recently received an honorary doctorate of philosophy at Hebrew University in Israel and, in her acceptance speech seen below, waded into one of Israel's touchiest issues, namely the religious practices that separate men and women.