Jews are not a race; they come in all colours from the lightest to the darkest. The Jews are not just a nation, but they are one. They are not just a religion, but they are one. Jews resolve the question of definition by calling themselves a people.
Indeed, the Jewish people see themselves as family, tracing their origins to the biblical patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, generally dated at about 1900 BCE (Before the Common Era).
Two thousand years later, the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the present Jewish Dispersion began. There are now some 14 million Jews in the world, with about 110,000 living in Australia.
As they spread throughout the world, the Jewish people brought with them particular spiritual and ethical values, a body of inspired literature and a sense of continuing history – the religion known as Judaism.
