WHO ARE THE 12 TRIBES¿ And which tribe does my family belong to¿

Hello and welcome back to Israel with Elin. We are in Jerusalem and today's topic is the 12 tribes of Israel. Who are they? Where are they located today? And besides, did you know that there are more than 12 tribes? And watch with us until the end to find out which tribe my family is part of. So if you're ready, let's get started. Walking through the streets of Jerusalem and Israel, we often come across representations of the 12 tribes like in this mosaic here. But to start understanding the origin of the tribes, we have to go back in history, the biblical genealogy from Abraham. So let's now go together to the Tower of David, find a very, very quiet place and talk about all this. Let's go. I'm going to put the biblical genealogy on the screen now for anyone who wants to follow along with me. We start with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the three patriarchs of Judaism. And most importantly, the 12 sons of Jacob, who will give rise to the 12 tribes of Israel. Joseph, or as we call him in English, Joseph, will be sold by his brothers and taken to Egypt. Some years later in the land of Israel, there will be a great drought and consequently a great famine. So the rest of the brothers and the family go down to Egypt. And thanks to Joseph, they are very well received. But sometime later, the Jews living in Egypt will be enslaved and will spend 400 years as slaves in Egypt. And this family, which when they went down was around 70, 75 people will grow and become a gigantic nation. And then the Exodus from Egypt happens. One of the most incredible passages in the Bible. God will send the 10 plagues to Egypt. The Red Sea will part and the people of Israel will be able to leave Egypt. And when they leave, they already leave organized into the 12 tribes. And they then go to the desert where the people will spend 40 years. And here we have two very important modifications of the tribes of Israel. The first modification is that the tribe of Joseph, the tribe of Joseph will split into two. It will split between his two sons who will be called Manasseh and Ephraim. And the second modification will be from the tribe of Levi. They will receive a very important role, the role of serving God and the priesthood. And therefore, the tribe of Levi will not receive inheritance lands, but rather the tribe of Levi will be placed within the other tribes. And thus, within the whole space of Israel, there would be part of the people of Levi also living. And in addition, who was from the tribe of Levi was Moses and especially his brother called Aaron, Aaron the Cohen. He will be the first priest of the people of Israel and his descendants will continue to be priests. Until today, we know who are the descendants of Aaron. And therefore, the tribe of Levi as a whole, they worked in the part of help and assistance. Also, for example, playing instruments, the songs and the family of Aaron, the family of Cohen, they are indeed priests. And after 40 years wandering in the desert, it was finally time to enter to conquer the land of Israel. And this new composition of the 12 tribes will divide the land of Israel among them, remembering that Levi does not receive any part. I'm going to put up for you now the map of the division of Canaan among the 12 tribes of Israel as described in the book of Joshua from chapter 13 to 19. And the 12 tribes will live side by side for 200 years. And after this period, there will be a unification of them all into a great kingdom. The first king will be King Saul after that King David and King Solomon. But after the period of King Solomon, there will be a division. This great Jewish kingdom will be divided into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom will be called the kingdom of Israel and within it will be most of the 10 tribes of Israel that you can see on the screen. And in the southern kingdom, there will be two of the tribes, the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. And that's why it's also called the kingdom of Judah and Levi as we've already mentioned, will be spread throughout the territory and thus they will live kingdom next to kingdom until a dramatic moment. In the year 722 before Christ, the great invasion of the kingdom of Israel to Syria will happen. They will destroy the kingdom of Israel and take the 10 tribes and exile them, send them to another place that we don't know where it is. If you've ever heard of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, that's exactly what we're talking about. And after invading the kingdom of Israel, they head south and come to invade the kingdom of Judah. In a battle for the survival of all the people of Israel, the last free Jews were here. The kingdom of Judah was a small kingdom with a significantly smaller population. How could they defend themselves from this great Assyrian invader? And we are now going to our next place, precisely the location of the battle against the Assyrians. So let's go. This gigantic wall that you see behind me was built by King Hezekiah precisely to defend Jerusalem from the Assyrian invasion. And the construction of this wall is reported in the book of Isaiah. And King Hezekiah's strategy will work and the Assyrians cannot conquer Jerusalem and then they leave and the kingdom of Judah is saved. So those who will become the people of Israel will be practically only those who stayed in the kingdom of Judah, which is primarily the tribe of Judah, which is the majority. We also have the tribe of Benjamin. We have part of the tribe of Levi who already lived there. And we also have part of the refugees who arrived from the Northern kingdom, from the kingdom of Israel, fled to the Southern kingdom, to the kingdom of Judah. So this will be the composition of the people of Israel and the composition remains until today. But since then, folks, more than 2,500 years have passed and the tribes among themselves will start to merge. And most Jews today do not know which tribe their family originates from, with one big exception, which is the tribe of Levi. Levi. Since the Levites were separated to do work in the temple of Jerusalem, we know exactly who they are, including many of them still maintain the surname Levi to this day, folks. I'm a huge fan of jinns. The first jinn in the world was created by a company called Levis. Levis is precisely because the man who created the company, it was his surname. And also, well, within the tribe of Levi, we continue to know who are from the family of Cohen. So Cohen is also a surname that is used to this day. Not necessarily all Coens keep the surname, but many of them do. For example, the Cohen brothers are very famous filmmakers in the United States. And what I promised you at the beginning of the video was to tell you what my family is. So my father's family, we can't know what their tribe is. So we call those who don't know their tribe Israel, but my mother's family, both my grandmother and my grandfather were Cohen. They were from the family of priests of the Temple of Jerusalem. So I will now also put here in the addition for you, the ketubah, my grandparents' marriage certificate. And you can see written in Hebrew, I will mark the word Cohen. That is my mother's family are Cohen from the tribe of Levi and my father's family, we don't know. And the last big question that we need to talk about is what happened to the 10 tribes of Israel, the 10 lost tribes. We know that the Assyrians are going to expel them from Israel and we don't exactly know where they will be taken. But there are some Jewish communities around the world, descendants of Jews who believe that maybe they are part of these lost tribes. The most famous and most important community is the community from India who are probably descendants of the tribe of Manasseh. And just now a few days ago, there was a special operation to bring part of this tribe back to Israel. And on December 15th, 252 descendants of the tribe of Manasseh arrived who continue to practice Judaism to this day. And we can also see them singing upon their arrival at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. And it's very beautiful to see one of the 12 tribes of Israel returning to their land after 2,700 years of exile. So the story of the tribes of Israel did not end in the past, but it continues to be written to this day. I hope you enjoyed this video. Don't forget to leave that like and also share with your friends. And I'll see you next time. Shalom!