Are Most Jews B'nai-Judah?

Farrell Bloch has a BA from Swarthmore College and a PhD from Stanford University. He is an economist in private practice as a consultant. His books include Antidiscrimination Law and Minority Employment, Statistics for Nonstatisticians, and a novel Michael’s Inheritance. Jacob’s sons are ancestors of all living Jews except converts and their descendants.1

Accordingly, the censuses in Numbers 1 and 26 – called Census A

and Census B in the discussion below – provide guidelines for the tribal affiliation of contemporary Jews. These censuses, in conjunction with a set of reasonable demographic assumptions, suggest that most Jews may be patrilineal descendants of Judah.

Given scholarly skepticism concerning the size of the population reported in these censuses, and the possibility of alternative interpretations of the counts,2 it is important to note at the outset that the accuracy of the census tallies is not necessary for the calculations that follow. It is required only that the ratio of each tribal population at some point in the past to the corresponding census count be constant across tribes.

Each census in the Book of Numbers gives the population of males 20 years of age and older, tribe by tribe. For the tribe of Levi, there is a special count of males at least one month old. The difference between the total figure for all the twelve tribes from one census to the other is less than one-third of one percent (that is, less than .0033 percent): 603,550 in Census A vs. 601,730 in Census B. However, these totals mask dramatic shifts in the counts across tribes. For example, between the first and second census, the tribe of Simeon decreased by more than 60 percent (cf. Num. 1:23, 26:14), while the tribe of Manasseh increased by more than 60 percent (cf. 1:35, 26:34).

To begin, assume that the ten “lost” tribes were completely assimilated into the general population of the Assyrian empire after 722 BCE. Then, among Jacob’s sons, only Judah, Benjamin, and Levi would be ancestors of modern Jews. In Census A, Judah’s adult male population is 74,600 and Benjamin’s is 35,400. In

Census B, Judah’s is 76,500 and Benjamin’s 45,600. The Talmud suggests

that these totals exclude men over 60 years of age, and therefore represent only the 20-60 age group, rather than all men at least 20.3

Census A records the male Levite population, from the age of one month, as 22,300,4

and Census B records it as 23,000. In addition, Census A counts

8,580 Levite men aged 30-50 (4:48). Census B offers no comparable category, but if the ratio of the 30-50 age group to the total number of male Levites remained constant, then its number can be estimated at 8,849.

The assumption that twice as many Levites were aged 20-60 as were aged

30-50 allows a tally of the tribal representation of 20-60-year-old Jewish males in the surviving Southern Kingdom of Judah. Doubling the 30-50 Levite population and adding the 20-60 population of Judah and Benjamin

yields totals and rounded percent allocations as in Table 1:

TABLE 1

Census A Census B

Total 127,160 139,798

Judah 59% 55%

Benjamin 28% 33%

Levi 13% 13%

These percentages assume that no Levites were assimilated along with the ten lost tribes. The alternative assumption that the Levites were distributed uniformly across all twelve tribes, and that those in the North were assimilated,5

implies totals and allocations as in Table 2:

TABLE 2

Census A Census B

Total 113,127 125,691

Judah 66% 61%

Benjamin 31% 36%

Levi 3% 3%

The corresponding percentages for modern Jews will differ from these estimates for several reasons: Variation in fertility and assimilation rates by tribe; additions to the Jewish population of converts and their descendants, who are not affiliated by blood with any tribe; and representation among contemporary Jews of descendants of the ten lost tribes.

At least four considerations suggest the presence of descendants of the Northern tribes among today’s Jews:5

First, Assyrian annals count individuals

deported from the Kingdom of Israel as about 27,000, a number that is small relative to the literal interpretation of the census counts and suggests that only selected classes were exiled. Second, two kings of Judah, Hezekiah (715-687) and Josiah (640-609) had contacts with Israelites of the Northern tribes, so many of them must still have been in the land (II Chron. 30, 34). Third, archeological excavations in Judah show a sudden increase of population and building of settlements in the time of Hezekiah, right after the fall of Samaria, which points to an influx of refugees from the Northern tribes. Fourth, much of the area of the Kingdom of Israel was incorporated into Judea in the time of the Hasmoneans, bringing in both Israelite and non-Israelite populations. Thus, the percentages calculated in Tables 1 and 2 should be regarded as upper bounds of representations among today’s Jews. The highest estimate of Levites in the Southern Kingdom of only 13 percent (Table 1) is consistent with the observation familiar to many synagogue-goers, that individual Kohanim and Leviim receive relatively many aliyot. On a Shabbat morning, two members of the tribe of Levi receive 29 percent (two of seven) of the aliyot, and at other times from 33 percent (two of six) to 67 percent (two of three). The tribe of Judah alone represented more than half of the Jews in the

Southern Kingdom, specifically, between 55-to-66 percent for males aged 20- 60. The tribe of Benjamin comprised only about one-third. These results support the conclusion that most Jews today are B’nai-Judah. Whether factors not incorporated into these calculations would reduce the representation of B’nai Judah among contemporary Jews to below 50 percent remains an open question.

NOTES

1. Descendants of Dinah (and other daughters of Jacob, if any) also would be considered Jews. However, the Bible provides no information about descendants of Jacob’s daughters. 2. For the population totals to remain equal to the sum of the tribal populations, one elef must equal ten me’ot. In particular, a common interpretation that an elef represents a small group while a me’ah is still one hundred, violates the biblical artithmetic.

2. TB. Baba Bathra 121b. If this assumption is dropped, the calculations in the text would become a bit more complex, but the essential conclusions would be unaffected. 4. The 22,300 total is the sum of three separate entries (Num. 3:22,28,34). Rashi notes that Numbers 3:39 gives a total of only 22,000 and reconciles the discrepancy by quoting TB Bekhorot 5b: “These three hundred Levites were first-born [and they] release them themselves from redemption.”

3. Disproportionally many Levites, but not all, lived in Jerusalem and were presumably less subject to assimilation than their relatives among the Northern tribes. For example, Jeremiah came from a family of Kohanim residing in Anatoth, three miles north of Jerusalem (Jer. 1:1). עשה תורת קבע

THE TRIENNIAL BIBLE READING CALENDAR

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF CHAIM ABRAMOWITZ

July Judges 4 - 21

I Samuel 1 - 6

August I Samuel 7 - 31

II Samuel 1 - 4

September II Samuel 5 - 24

I Kings 1 - 10

October I Kings 11 - 22

II Kings 1 - 18

QUESTIONS from Rabbi Hayyim Hal-

pern’s book TORAH DIALOGUESTORAH DIALOGUESTORAH DIALOGUESTORAH DIALOGUES 1. Where else in the Torah have we encountered the phrase

“This is the line of . . . “ (Num. 3:1) ? Explain the connection.

2. What connection can you make between Leviticus Chap-

ter 27 on vows and Chapter 26 which deals with dire warn-

ings and imprecations?

3. Why would God order Moses to send spies to Canaan

(Num. 13:2) ?

ANSWERS ON PAGE