Can Isay something here?
The Jews of today are an ethnoreligious group, meaning ahybrid of their original ethnicity and followers of judaism regardless of their ethnicity.
According to the Tanakh, the Hebrews were founded by Ibrahim, whom God later renamed him Abraham,who roamed through the middle east from the Sumerian city of Ur under Gods orders. Later the descendants of Jacob(later renamed by God as Israel) became the twelve tribes of the Hebrew race.But back then,the Hebrews wer not a unified people, just tribes that enjoyed peaceful relations due to kinship(much like the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, and Danes of Germany and Scandinavia). Later the tribes were unified by King Saul, later to be replaced by David of the Tribe of Benjamin. Out of this bloodline it is suggested in the Nevi'im that Y'shua(Jesus Christ) (the Nevi'imdoes NOT mention the name of the Messiah)or the Messiah would come to cleanse mankind of its sins.
By the time Jesus was born though, the Kingdom of Israel was merely a shadow of its former glory; after being set free by the King Xerxes, Nehemiah and his Hebrew followers rebuilt Jerusalem., and by the time Jesus was cruicified, the independent Hasmonean Dynasty had been destoryed by Antipater the Idumaean and the Romans and the dynasty of Herod had almost come to an end.
The infamous Jewish diaspora began after the Jews rioted against Romans, who eventually destroyed the Jewish rebels and destroyed Jerusalem again. Duringthis revolt the famous general,later historian under Vespaspian's house, Josephus.
The Jews by now a mixed enthinicy compared to their the ancestors, were compelled to hide in various corners of thw world, where they further dilluted their ethnicity by intermarring and accepting new converts(the modern country of Israel accepts Jews, regardless of ethiniciy, as one of their own if he/she is willing to immigrate, for reference look into 'Return Law' on Wikipedia ). The Jews after suffering proseucutionrefound their country through the help of the Zionists and Winston Churchill(he was Zionist all his life while being atheistnor Jewish by confession, an actual persuer of Social Darwinism).
The Haganah and Jewish people fought to keep their precious land as the Arab(persumed by some as the descendants of Ishmael, the first born of Abraham and the father of the Midians) nations tried to strangle theinfant country. The War ended with the Jewish nation wining the war,thus perserving independence.
The subjeact of whether Israel is supposed to exist is heatedly debated by Jews, for it is a sacred land that is in Jewish propehcies(look for eretzYisrael on Wikipedia)and some jewish theologians argue that the Jewish nation can only be found under divine guidance, which they believe the present country is not.
