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Who is Yahweh? Where did he come from? How did this jealous, vengeful, exclusivist god shape the destiny of his chosen people? Can we trace a direct connection, through twenty-five centuries, linking the cult of Yahweh to contemporary Zionism? It all starts with the Old Testament, the ur-text for any serious inquiry into the Jewish question. That book - more correctly known as the Torah - does not simply recount the history of a people. It gives the children of Israel the keys to their divinely-ordained destiny. It was Jacob, son of Isaac, who returned from exile and took the name Israel: a name inherited by the whole Jewish people long before it designated a nation-state. That single name unites the patriarch, the people, and the promised land. The history of the Jewish people is intertwined with the history of humanity.