in the broadest sense, a Jew, or a descendant of the Jewish patriarch Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel after an all-night fight at Penuel near the stream of Jabbok (Genesis 32:28). In early Jewish history, Israelites were simply members of the 12 tribes of Israel. After 930 BC and the establishment of two independent Jewish kingdoms in Palestine, the ten northern tribes constituting the Kingdom of Israel were known as Israelites to distinguish them from Jews in the southern Kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians in 721 BC, and its population was eventually absorbed by other peoples. Thereafter, the name Israelite referred to those who were still distinctively Jewish, namely, descendants of the Kingdom of Judah.

In liturgical usage, an Israelite is a Jew who is neither a cohen (descendant of Aaron, the first high priest) nor a Levite (descendant of early religious functionaries). The distinction is significant, for if a cohen is present for synagogue service, he must be called up first for the reading of the Law; he is then followed by a Levite. Normally, therefore, an Israelite is not called up until the third reading.