Where does the name Land of Israel come from?
The Bible recounts the struggle of the patriarch Jacob (grand-son of Abraham and Sarah, and son of Isaac and Rebecca) with an angel. After this fight, the angel said to Jacob: “Your name will no longer be Ya'acov (Jacob) but Israel, for you have striven (sarita) with God and with men and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). According to this verse, Israel could mean “wrestler of God”.
For this reason, Israel’s descendants – first Hebrews and then Jews - were called Bnei Israel (Children of Israel or Israelites), divided into 12 Shivte Israel (tribes of Israel) living in the land between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan. This land was named Eretz Israel (Land of Israel), not to be mistaken with Medinat Israel (State of Israel), the country created in 1948. The Land of Israel included Judea, Samaria, Galilee and the coastal Sharon plain.
Eretz Israel was the territory called Palaestina (Palestine) by Romans after the defeat of the Jewish revolt in 135 AD. Arabs conquered the region in the years 630 AD, and retained the name Palestine in its Arabic form (Filastine). This name is the equivalent of what Jews call the Land of Israel, meaning two names for the same territory.

The Israelites and the Judeans
The Kingdom of Solomon experienced a schism after his death in 931 BC:

• The ten northern tribes formed the Kingdom of Israel, destroyed by the Babylonian King Shalmaneser V in 722 BC. The population was either dispersed or found refuge in the Kingdom of Judea. This dispersion gave birth to the myth of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
• The two southern tribes formed the Kingdom of Judea. After this kingdom fell under the Babylonian rule and the First Temple was destroyed in 586 BC, the elites of the kingdom were deported to Babylon. The name 'Ivrim (Hebrews) was replaced with Yehudim (Judeans), called Ioudaíoi in Greek, Iudaei in Latin, and Jews in English.

Israelite, Jew, Israeli?

• “Israelite” refers to the Biblical period. This term was used in France in the nineteenth century, when Jews became French citizens and wanted to be assimilated as much as possible into the European society. Israelite was a “softer” term than Jew.
• “Jew” is the name used for the community member descending from the Judeans, practicing Judaism and/or attached to the Jewish culture. The practice of the Jewish religion is not mandatory to be a Jew. A Jew can feel that he is Jewish because of his culture, his history or a family connection. For centuries, Jews have also included converts and descendants of converts whose ancestors were not Judeans.
•  “Israeli” in the name used for the citizen of the State of Israel. About 20% of Israelis are not Jews but Palestinian Arabs, mostly Muslims but also Christians. Jews of the Diaspora can benefit from the Law of Return and automatically become Israelis when they come and settle in the country. It is also possible to become Israeli by naturalization.

How do we say Diapora in Hebrew?
There are two terms:

• “Gola” or “Galut” (exile) expresses the longing for the Land of Israel and the situation of the Jewish people as a minority in their country of residence.
• “Hatfutsot” (dispersions) is the Hebrew word for the Greek diaspora, and describes the situation of the Jewish people from a central point, the Land of Israel.

Since the nineteenth century, the hope for a return to the Land of Israel has been called Kibbutz Galuyot (gathering of exiles).

The history of the Diaspora
The first Diaspora took place in 587 BC, when Judean elites were deported to Babylonia. When the Jewish sovereignty was restored in Judea, some Jews returned to the Land of Israel while others remained in Babylonia. Babylonian Jews had a major influence on Judaism, particularly with the writing down of the Babylonian Talmud in the early centuries of the Common Era. The Jewish community living on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers stayed there until the 1950s, when more than 100,000 Iraqi Jews joined the State of Israel.
In ancient times, many Jews settled around the Mediterranean and created significant communities, for example in Egypt (Alexandria and Elephantine), in Greece, in Asia Minor and in Rome.
After the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the army of Titus in 70 AD and the Jewish revolt was defeated in Judea in 135 AD, most Jews left the Land of Israel and settled throughout the Roman Empire, with large Jewish communities created in Spain, France, the Rhine Valley and the Maghreb.
The rise of religious intolerance in Christian Europe led to repeated evictions of Jews. They were expelled from England and Wales in 1290, from France between 1182 and 1394, from the Holy Roman Empire between 1348 and 1551, from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. Jews moved to various host countries: Poland, the Netherlands, the Maghreb and the Ottoman Empire.
Jewish communities from Babylonia went along the Silk Road and other trade routes to settle in Central Asia, in China (Kaifeng) and in India (Calcutta, Bombay and Cochin).
After some European colonies settled in America, Jewish communities settled in the north and the south of the continent. Other smaller Jewish communities left Europe for Australia and South Africa.

Whatever the times, there were several common points:

• Maintain a common religious structure along with specific customs (liturgy, food, clothings) to each community;
• Maintain a link between various communities through cultural and economic exchange;
• Welcome persecuted Jews;
• Exchange cultural values and economic goods with the local population, which sometimes led to conversion or assimilation from the nineteenth century;
• Speak a specific vernacular language mixing the local language with Hebrew words. The main languages were Yiddish (Judeo-German), spoken until the Second World War in all Jewish communities living in Eastern Europe, as well as Judezmo (Judeo-Spanish), spoken by the descendants of the Spanish Jews expelled in 1492, that became the Jewish-Arab language spoken by Jewish communities living in the Maghreb. Other languages – always written with the Hebrew alphabet - included Judeo-Provençal, Judeo-Alsatian, Yevanic (Judeo-Greek) and Judeo-Persian.
• Use the Hebrew language for liturgy and epistolary exchange.

The situation nowadays
The Shoah and the creation of the State of Israel have altered the distribution of Jews in the world as well as the relations between the Diaspora and the Land of Israel.

In the late 1930s, on a global population estimated at 17 million Jews:

• 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe;
• 4.4 million Jews lived in the United States;
• 850,000 Jews lived in the Arab world;
• 450,000 Jews lived in Mandatory Palestine.

In the early twenty-first century, on a world population estimated at 13.5 million Jews:

• 5.9 million Jews live in Israel;
• 4.5 million Jews live in the United States;
• 1.4 million Jews live in Europe;
• 4,000 Jews live in the Arab world.

The Law of Return
The Knesset (Israeli parliament) voted the Law of Return on 5 July 1950. All Jews can legally immigrate to Israel and automatically obtain Israeli citizenship, as well as their spouse and children, even if they are not Jewish, including a same-sex spouse since 12 August 2014.
The Law of Return embodies the intention for the State of Israel to become the national home of every Jew who wishes to come, or is in danger in his own country, and illustrates the centrality of the Land of Israel in the Jewish history, culture and religion.
Immigration in Israel is called Aliyah (ascent) in Hebrew, and emigration from Israel is called Yerida (descent).