Ethnicity at Elephantine Jews, Arameans, Caspians

The dual ethnic identity of the Jews of Elephantine (5th century BCE) has long puzzled scholars. In the legal documents, the Jews are sometimes identified as ‘Jew’ and at others as ‘Aramean’. In order to discover the logic that underlies this practice, the author compares the ethnic identity tags of the Jews on the island with those applied to members of the local Caspian community. The comparison demonstrates that ‘Aramean’ did indeed serve as an ethnic designation of the Jews—applied by others and by themselves. The reference is neither to language nor to tribe, but rather to territory. ‘Arameans’ were inhabitants of Aram, that is, Syria. The Jews did have a double identity: They were Syrians since they came from the satrapy of Beyond-the-River, i.e., Syria; they were Jews on account of their more narrow regional and religious identity.