Jrgen said:
Yes, you're right. How come you know this?
Doesn't that mean "Jew" or something? Seeing how Yehudim is Judaism.
I'm currnetly learning Swedish...trying to understand all the swedish guys in the Dan Swano and Katatonia/Bloodbath forums prompted me to do so.
about the second thing You're Half Right.
Yehuda is the hebrew pronounciation for the name JUDAS(like JUDAS ISCARIOT and JUDAS PRIEST) and it's quite common too.
Now for a little history.
First there was Abraham who came from "UR KASDIM" which is now somewhere in IRAQ.
He had 2 sons: Isaac and Ishmael(The Arabs are decendents of Ishmael)
Isaac had 2 sons:Jacob and Esau
Jacob (aka Israel) had 13 sons.one was Joseph(Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and the other 12 were later the 12 tribes of Israel.
One of those Tribes was the JUDEA tribe.
Basicly because the 12 brothers sold Joseph to the Egyptians.Their descendents(people of Israel) were slaves in Egypt for 400 years untill Moses set them free(Let my people go) after walking in circles for 40 years in the Sinai desert the people of Israel finally returned to their homeland and each tribe got a land.JUDEA got the land where jerusalem now stands.
later started a Monarchy first with King Saul and then King David and his son King Solomon.
after King Solomon died Israel split into two kingdoms.
The Kingdom of Israel ruled by King Yerovam and consisted of 10 of the 12 tribes and its capital was in the city of Shechem.
and The Kingdom of Judea which consisted of the JUDEA tribe,The Benjamin tribe and the Levy tribe(which had no land but the religious priests in the temple were from this tribe only...and the temple was in jerusalem on JUDEAN soil).
In 733 BC the Asyrian Empire(who came from what is now Syria) and conquered the whole region and Exiled The Kingdom of Israel and since then the 10 tribes were lost.
later in 586 BC The Babylonian(Iraq) Empire Exiled the Kingdom of Judea to to different regions of the Babylonian Empire and Destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.
In 538 BC The Persian Empire has allowed The exiled Jews to return to the Land of Israel and to have religious freedom.So we built the 2nd temple
which was destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 AD.
When Jews were allowed to return to Israel most of them didn't but formed small jewish communities at the place where they lived.Some were in Iran and Iraq, some in diferent parts of Europe like Germany and over the years spread all over Europe and several parts of Asia. A very big community was in Spain which was exiled at the order of the King of Spain in 1492 and most of it traveled to North african countries like Morroco,Yemen, Egypt.
The whole point of all this is that Jews are called Jews(YEHUDIM) because we're from the Kingdom of JUDEA(MAMLEKHET YEHUDA) which consisted mostly from JUDEA (YEHUDA) Tribe.
