What nationalities do the 12 tribes of Israel refer to?

Answer 1

According to traditional interpretations of The Bible, the 12 Tribes of Israel do not correspond 1:1 with modern countries or nations. The 12 Tribes of Israel and their descendants are typically considered Jews or they have been assimilated into larger nationalities (such as Mesopotamian).

Answer 2

A:

Modern Israel, formed by the Jewish people, represents the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE and many of its people scattered and assimilated into various host cultures, where they intermarried, so no modern nation represents the ten tribes of biblical Israel. However, many of the Israelites left the northern kingdom and fled south into Judah and adopted a Jewish identity, or became part of the diaspora in Egypt, so once again modern Israel could be said to represent these tribes, at least in small part.

This belief that different nations are from the 12 tribes of Israel comes from the theory of British-Israelism. This attempted to prove that the existing different nations and their characteristics had come from the worldwide dispersion of the 12 tribes of Israel into different areas of the world.[See link below]. British-Israelism was originally politically-motivated and is simply wrong.

However, modern Israel is made up of emigrants of jews to it from all other nations of the world.