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More Notes about the Tribe of Benjamin (30 August 2017, 8 Elul, 5777)

1. The Question
2. Benjamin in the North
3. An Early Exile of Benjamin to Parts of Europe?
4. Benjamin among the Ten Tribes.
5. Benjamin among the Jews. Hasidim of Vizhnitz
6. Additional Sources. Characteristics of Benjamin
7. Esther and Mordecai. Important Personages from Benjamin
8. Benjamin among the Jews of Worms (by Frankfort) in Southwest Germany
9. Left-Handed People and Benjamin
Mike wrote:

Yair was there a mixture of Benjamin into the northern kingdom?  Is that how mordecai and Esther ended up in Assyria?  Thx for any other interesting insights into the house of Benjamin. Hashem has shown me it is my tribe. Shalom.

Mike Shalom,
here is an article in answer to your questions.
 Benjamin received his portion just to the north of Judah. The Tribe of Benjamin was destined to be included int he Kingdom of Judah and its inhabitants to be counted as Jews. In the Book of Esther, Mordecai is descedned from Saul of the Tribe of Benjamin yet he is also referred to expressly as "Modecai ha-Yehudai" (Esther 6:2) i.e. Mordecai the Jew.

Esther 2:
5 Now there was a certain Jew at the palace named Mordecai (son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite).

Esther 6:
10 'Excellent!' the king said to Haman. 'Hurry and take these robes and my horse, and do just as you have said, to Mordecai the Jew, who works at the Chancellery. Follow every detail you have suggested.'.

The Commentator Malbim says that after the division of the Land among the Tribes as recorded in the Book of Joshua the Israelites later conquered additional lands within the boundaries of the areas prompised to Abraham.
These new areas were (says the Malbim) re-divided among the Tribes who used them to settle their surplus populations.
This could explain how we find elements from Benjamin in northern Syria.  These northern Benjamin would have pertained to the northern Kingdom.
We have noted these northern segments of Benjamin in our work "The Tribes". In our work "The Tribes", chapter 11, we spoke a little of these matters.

Most of Benjamin in the Land of Israel was contained within the Kingdom of Judah of which Benjamin and Judah were the major tribes.  Nevertheless a portion of Benjamin was also to be found within the area of the Northern Kingdom and these must have shared the fate of their fellow Israelites who were exiled by the Assyrians. Archaeological findings from the city of Mari on the Euphrates River in Northern Syria revealed inscriptions that spoke of the Banu-Yamina (Benjamin) people in that area1. [They also speak of Manasseh, Reuben, and the people of Yair, and of Hebrews in general in the same regions]. The Talmud (Zebachim 118.b) says that a strip of land extended from Benjamin into Ephraim and encompassed the Tabernacle in Shiloh. The site of Shiloh is approximately in the center of the territory of Ephraim according to conventional understanding. Shiloh  would have been well within the region of the Northern Kingdom after its secession from Judah. Similarly, the Bible recalls people from Benjamin in the area of Ephraim or sometimes associates the Mount of Ephraim with Benjaminites, e.g. Shiba son of Bichri (2- Samuel  20:21) a Benjaminite in "Mount Ephraim". E.Z. Melamed2 and Yehudah KIEL3 concluded from Biblical references (1-Chr. 7:12 cf. 7:15) that Machir the son of Manasseh on the east bank of the Jordan took wives from Benjamin whose descendants may have induced other Benjaminites to settle amongst them. Later, the Tribesmen of Benjamin in turn took spouses from Jabesh-Gilead of Manasseh east of the Jordan (Judges ch. 21). It was Saul of Benjamin who rescued the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead from their enemies (1-Samuel ch.11). In the Book of Obadiah (1:19) it says that in the future, "Benjamin shall possess Gilead". The area of Gilead was east of the Jordan River.  It is likely that the Prophecy of Obadiah about Benjamin receiving Gilead was based on some past association of Benjamin with that area4. At all events, part of the Tribe of Benjamin was also exiled along with the Ten others.



Despite the presence of part of Benjamin in the north, most of the Tribe of Benjamin was in the south, between Ephraim and Judah, and  just to the north of Judah.
Jewish legends says that BEFORE the exile of the Ten Tribes a portion of the Tribe of Benjamin went to Rome or to what is now Romania (Radack Kimchi on Judges 20:15, HaNatziv), or to Germany (Ginzberg, Legends).

Amongst the Gentiles,
We have traced BENJAMIN to the NORMANS and to part of the BELGAE tribes in Belgium, France, and Britain.

See our work, "The Tribes"


Some Jewish families have a tradition that they descended from Benjamin.
One of these families is that of Hagar from whom emerged the leading Hasidic Vizhnitz dynasties and other leading Rabbis.
I was told that originally this family was from the Jews in Spain.
When the Jews were expelled from Spain the family moved eastwards through Germany into what is now the Ukraine and Romania.
On the way they changed from being Sephardic [Eastern] Jews to Ashkenazic.
Eventually they identified with the Hasidic Movement of eastern Europe and became leaders within it.
Several Hasidic dynasties emerged from this family.
Vizhnitz (Hasidic dynasty)
6. Additional Sources.Characteristics of Benjamin

Are you from Benjamin?



We learn that Esther and Mordecai were from the Tribe of Benjamin.
They had been exiled with King Jeconiah of Judah.

5 Now there was a certain Jew at the palace named Mordecai (son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite). 6 He had been captured when Jerusalem was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and had been exiled to Babylon along with King Jeconiah of Judah and many others. 7 This man had a beautiful and lovely young cousin, Hadassah (also called Esther), whose father and mother were dead, and whom he had adopted into his family and raised as his own daughter.

The Jews in Babylon. Timetable
Babylonian captivity
First Deportation
609 BCE Death of Josiah
609-598 BCE Reign of Jehoiakim (succeeded Jehoahaz, who replaced Josiah but reigned only 3 months). Began giving tribute to Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BCE.
First deportation, including Daniel.
Second Deportation
598/7 BCE Reign of Jehoiachin (reigned 3 months). Siege and fall of Jerusalem.
Second Deportation,  597, Jehoiachin deported along with others including Mordecai and Esther.
Third Deportation
597 BCE Zedekiah made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
594 BCE Anti-Babylonian conspiracy
588 BCE Siege and fall of Jerusalem. Solomon's Temple destroyed.
Third deportation July/August 587
Flight to Egypt and a Possible Fourth Deportation
583 BCE Gedaliah the Babylonian-appointed governor of Yehud Province assassinated.
Many Jews flee to Egypt and a possible fourth deportation to Babylon.
Jews in Babylon
562 BCE Release of Jehoiachin after 37 years in a Babylonian prison.[30] He remains in Babylon
Cyrus the Persian
539 BCE Persians conquer Babylon (October)
538 BCE Decree of Cyrus allows Jews to return to Jerusalem
520-515 BCE Return by many Jews to Yehud under Zerubbabel and Joshua the High Priest.
Foundations of Second Temple laid

From the above we see that Mordecai and Esther were with King Jeconiah (Jehoiakin) in the Second Deportation.

The exiles who went with King Jeconiah included some of the most important people in the Kingdom.

Jeremiah 24:
1 After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had captured and enslaved Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah, and exiled him to Babylon along with the princes of Judah and the skilled tradesmen, the carpenters and blacksmiths, the Lord gave me this vision.

Jeremiah 27:
19-21 For the LORD Almighty says: The pillars of bronze standing before the Temple, the great bronze basin in the Temple court, the metal stands, and all the other ceremonial articles left here by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when he exiled all the important people of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon, along with Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah. From: zeev barkan <email@example.com>

Shalom Yair,
Thought this might interest you:


By : Gotthard Deutsch   Abraham Lewinsky   Joseph
Jacobs   Schulim Ochser

Town in Rhein-Hesse, grand duchy of Hesse, Germany.
Like Mayence and Cologne, it has one of the oldest
Jewish communities in Germany. A legend relates that
the Jews of Worms were descended from the Benjaminites
who had migrated from Palestine to Germany
(Br&#252;ll's "Jahrb&#252;cher," 1879, iv. 34 et
seq.). It is possible that there was a congregation
there in the time of the Romans, but the first
historical reference is the statement that Jews from
this city visited the fair at Cologne about the year
1000 (Aronius, "Regesten," No. 149; Kober, "Studien
zur Mittelalterlichen Geschichte der Juden in
K&#246;ln am Rhein," p. 9, note 3, Breslau, 1903).


It could be that the tribe of Benjamin had an extra high percentage of left-handed people among them.
It is not certain.
If such was the case the characteristic of Benjamin in general may have been influenced by this.
Left-handed people are often slightly more intelligent, more artistic, more reserved, and also may suffer more from lack of coordination and other matters.
Left-Handed People in the Bible
Is there a genetic link to Benjamite lefties?
Biblical Views: 'Left-Handed Sons of Right-Handers' in the May/June 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
by Boyd Seevers and Joanna Klein


The Hebrew Bible mentions left-handed people on three occasions: the story of Ehud's assassination of the Moabite king (Judges 3:12-30), the 700 Benjamites who could use the sling with deadly accuracy (Judges 20:16) and the two-dozen ambidextrous warriors who came to support David in Hebron (1 Chronicles 12:2). All of these stories of left-handed people in the Bible appear in military contexts, and, curiously, all involve members of the tribe of Benjamin.

In a Biblical Views column in the May/June 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, professors Boyd Seevers and Joanna Klein ask the question, 'Were these warriors from the tribe of Benjamin left-handed by nature or nurture?' Citing studies in the genetics of left-handedness and Biblical texts, Seevers and Klein show that it may have been a bit of both.

Benjamites may have been genetically disposed to left-handedness at birth, but the trait may also have been encouraged in soldiers to give them a strategic advantage in combat, somewhat like left-handed baseball pitchers today, against right-handed opponents who were unaccustomed to fighting 'lefties.' Warriors from the tribe of Benjamin might have been trained to be equally or more effective with their left hands.

Then again, perhaps the Biblical writers simply enjoyed a bit of word play. The name Benjamin means 'son of (my) right hand.' Perhaps the irony of left-handed 'sons of right-handers' caused the Biblical authors to take note in these cases.












The "KHAZARS" were a semi-nomadic people who became prominent in southern Russia and its neighborhood in the 600s to 900s CE. They were quite powerful with a far-reaching influence and well-developed civilization.



Proof as to where the Lost Ten Tribes went; who their descendants are today; and which tribe each specific national group belongs to.



The "ORIGIN" of several peoples in the west today is from Israel. The Bible tells us who really is descended from the Lost Ten Tribes.



The Blessings in the Bible given to the Children of Israel were epitomized most strongly in the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim dominates Britain and her daughters, Manasseh is pre-eminent in the USA.



The Bible in the Book of Genesis reveals to us the present-day identity of the Lost Ten Tribes. They are identifiable with certain peoples amongst the Western Nation.






How the British and Americans Proved they Descend from Joseph and the Ten Tribes of Israel



Chosen People The Ancient Celts and related peoples referred to themselves as Hebrews.The inhabitants of Britain pertained mainly to clans belonging to Joseph. The Jews need to believe in the God of Israel and keep the Torah.















The Ten Tribes and Judah in the Prophecy of Hosea, First Chapters, by Yair Davidiy



The Israelite Input into the Modern Anglo-Saxon Language by Yair Davidiy





