Israelites
This article is about the biblical people. For the members of the modern state of Israel, see Israelis.
The Israelites are - according to the Bible - all members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and their descendants, the Jews and the Samaritans. In their totality and generational succession, they constitute the people of Israel (Hebrew יִשְׂרָאֵל Yisra'el), who are bound by a "covenant" (Hebrew בְּרִית Brīt, also Brith or Bərit), a covenant between the people and YHWH, or being in a covenant agreement of God with the people of the twelve tribes.
Later in the Bible the term Israelites was used only for the inhabitants of the northern kingdom.
In the European Enlightenment and then in the 19th century under the French Emperor Napoleon I in the French official language, the term "Israelites" was preferred to the term "Jews", which was felt to be burdened by anti-Semitic hostility. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the term partly became the official and the self-designation for European Jews. This led to institution names such as Israelitische Kultusgemeinde.
Zionism rejected the term "Israelites". After 1945, it still persisted in France.
