Who regarded moral behavioras important to their religious beliefs?

Answer 1

The Israelites.

• Judaism has an all-enveloping and passionate dedication to the ideal of justice. The moral imperatives of justice, ethics and morality were taught by the Torah and the Jewish prophets, so that they are religious ideals and obligations, rather than just good behavior. We are obligated to care for the poor (Deuteronomy 15:7-8), the widow, orphan and stranger (Exodus 22:20-21), the Levites (Deuteronomy 12:17-19) and the landless. We are also warned against corruption, bribery, misuse of power, and mistreatment of workers. The Torah specifies rights for women and other groups. The Torah teaches the ideal of justice for the benefit of society and the moral guidance of the individual. The relevant verses are mixed in with other Torah-topics so that the message is imbibed as part of the whole.

• Judaism addresses in depth and in detail the obligations of the individual and the community to other individuals. A Jew has a legal obligation to help someone in need (e.g. Leviticus 19:16, Exodus 23:5); and to be a bystander in such a case is a Torah-violation. Tradition states that every Jew should exhibit the characteristic of chesed, meaning the ability to go beyond the requirement of the law to help others. The Talmud states that mercy and kindness should be among the defining traits of every Jew (Talmud, Yevamot 79a).

Quote:
"I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation ... fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations" (John Adams, 2nd President of the United States).
"Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights, but we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both Divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and of collective conscience, and social responsibility" (Paul Johnson, Christian historian, author of A History of the Jews and A History of Christianity).

Answer 2

Both Jewish people and Christians.