Enlarged population (includes full or partial Jewish ancestry): 20.7 million [1]
Jews ( Hebrew : יְהוּדִים , ISO 259-2 : Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation : [jehuˈdim] ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group , [10] nation or ethnos [11] [12] originating from the ancient Israelites [13] [14] [15] and Hebrews [16] [17] [18] of historical Israel and Judah . Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, [19] [20] as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, although its observance varies from strict to none. [21] [22]
Jews originated as an ethnic and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, [9] in a part of the Levant known as the Land of Israel . [23] The Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE ( Late Bronze Age ). [24] [25] The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, [26] consolidated their hold in the region with the emergence of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah . Some co