The history of the Jewish people spans four millennia, from the time of the biblical patriarch, Abraham, to the present day. Judaism is one of the oldest religions and the first monotheistic one. Throughout its history, the Jewish religion has not remained static and its ability to adapt and evolve helps to explain its survival into the modern era. The belief in one God, in moral ethics based upon the Ten Commandments, and in the covenant between God, the Children of Israel and the Land of Israel, set out in Genesis, the first book of the Torah (Hebrew Bible), have remained central features. The covenant is symbolised by the circumcision of all males at the age of eight days, a practice that has distinguished Jews throughout the ages. The belief in the common origins of the Jewish people with the Abrahamic covenant explains the ethnic identity of Jews today, so that Jewish identity is best understood as ethnic and religious.

The first two millennia of Jewish history centred in and around the Land of Israel, but already in 586 BCE, after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, the first dispersion took place. Known by the Greek word ‘diaspora’, meaning dispersion, the first major Jewish settlement outside Israel was established in Babylon at that time, although Jews were permitted to return to what was then called Judah after 550 BCE, the start of the Second Jewish Commonwealth.