ISRAELITES

Israelites

The Israelites were a Semitic Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East, who inhabited part of the Land of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods, later evolving into the Jews and Samaritans, inhabiting the territories of Judea and Galilee, and Samaria respectively. In modern Hebrew usage, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites.

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