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For example, Dan the patriarch is not related to Judah. Is he still a Jew? Technically he would be like a Hebrew but was born in Egypt before the giving of the Torah. Can he still be considered a Jew or would he have to reincarnate with a Jewish mother to be considered a Jew even though he was a patriarch?

To continue. Currently, the status of the Northern Tribes is "lost". Will they be Jews when "we" "find" "them".

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    Who is " Dan the patriarch"?
    – Edward B
    Commented Aug 10 at 23:59
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    @nomel7 Dan was not a patriarch, but rather a "shevet" :) No questions are silly here, we are all learning
    – Rabbi Kaii
    Commented Aug 11 at 10:24
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    Your second question should be asked separately. Check if it hasn't been asked before first, we have a lot of questions on the ten tribes
    – Rabbi Kaii
    Commented Aug 11 at 10:29
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    You're touching on a good point here, which can confuse a lot of people. The people Moses took out of Egypt were "the Children of Israel." However, over the next 900 years, the Tribe of Judah became the dominant population in the Land of Israel. So the term "Yehudim" went from meaning "Judeans" specifically to "all Israelites", or what we'd now call "all Jews." There's a theory that at least some Jews from Ethiopia may descend from Dan, by the way.
    – Shalom
    Commented Aug 11 at 10:36
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    @nomel7 The patriarchs were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also known as Israel). Dan and Judah were not patriarchs. They were certainly related. They were brothers. Each was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel). They were both "children of Israel" and their descendants (along with the descendants of the other sons of Jacob (Israel) made up the 12 tribes taken out of Egypt as the "Children of Israel" and who received the Torah at Sinai and the ne3xt generation of which entered the Land of Israel led by Joshua.
    – Edward B
    Commented Aug 11 at 15:06

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What is Jewishness? Don't get stuck in semantics. It's not

'someone who is connected to the tribe of Judah, because the etymology of "jew" is "yehuda".'

Jews are those who Hashem chose for the special mission of receiving the Torah and being a light to the nations. This started with Avraham, and passed to one of his children, Yitzchak, and then passed to one of Yitzchak's children, Yaacov. See here for Scriptural reference to this process.

This was then passed to ALL of his children, meaning that every child of Yaacov received this mission. Indeed, all of the people camped around Sinai were the children of Yaacov, representantives from all of his own children (the 12 tribes - also there were converts and eruv rav but that is beyond scope).

Once the Torah was given, we were obligated in all of its commandments, as well as the tradition given along with the Torah which contains the explanation and methodology to the commandments. It is from this that we understood that "choseness for 'Judaism'" passes through the mother.

So, tl'dr, don't get stuck on the etymology - "Jewishness" is more connected to the original Jews, Avraham, Yitzchak and Israel (Yaacov). All the descendants of Israel, through matrilineal heritage, are "Jewish", i.e. of the House of Israel who were chosen to receive the Torah and be a light unto the nations.

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  • Thank you Rabbi. Sorry for the silly questions.
    – nomel7
    Commented Aug 11 at 10:22
  • I'm not sure it's correct to say God chose the Jews. God chose the Israelites, of which we are one tribe and presumably the only tribe left. So it sounds more like God chose the Israelites and only Judah is left.
    – Aaron
    Commented Aug 12 at 13:10
  • @Aaron we have plenty of reason to believe that there are representatives in the Jewish nation from all tribes, even if Yehuda and Levy are the only ones "not officially exiled". We aren't called Israel as much as Jew so I say the term evolved, rather than changed. I.e I didn't think this question needed a semantics based answer. Just a semites based answer :)
    – Rabbi Kaii
    Commented Aug 13 at 11:51
  • I wrote a response but trashed it. I think my ADHD brain is just spinning on wanting to be hyper literally correct. I'll drop it
    – Aaron
    Commented Aug 13 at 16:21

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