Judaism is an religion, so called because, along with religions and , it looks back to a man in iraq around 1800bc, named , as its forefather. it is also a religion, since, like and , it believes in one god. the people descended from abraham's grandfather heber were perhaps called ; the name stuck in egypt, due to a pun. abraham's younger grandson, , wrestled with an angel by night, and was given the name by the angel. that name means either "prince / heir of god" or . jacob, in turn, had twelve sons. one, whose descendants survived through the all the changes of israelite history, was named . the southern kingdom, around jerusalem, came to be named for him. his name is where the name comes from, and from that comes the name of the religion. there is a modern republic, called israel, which is zionist in foundation and should be kept distinct from the ancient kingdom of israel. a subject of the ancient kingdom is called an , whereas a citizen of the present-day republic is called an . so "jew" can refer to an ethnicity, someone of descent; or to a follower of the faith of as developed on mt. sinai by . confusingly, the historical language of the jews, recently re-created, is also called . abraham also had another son, , by another woman, . from them descend the people. therefore jews and are, as it were, cousins. the jewish scripture, called by christians, is called the by jews.