JEWRY. The term occurs only in the KJV where it stands for Judea (̓Ιουδαία, G2677, Luke 23:5; John 7:1). Coverdale’s Bible (1535) tr. Ps 76:1: “In Jewry God is known...”; also the Great Bible (1539) ed. by Coverdale. Both here and in the NT, the meaning is the same—Judah or Judea (יְהוּדָ֑ה).

In the course of time the term changed from a geographical to an ethnic description. It now connotes: (1) the Jewish quarters in a town or city (e.g., Old Jewry in London); (2) the religion of the Jewish people, i.e., Judaism (this however is not common); (3) the Jewish people in the ethnic and cultural sense as a distinct community.

Bibliography A New English Dictionary, V, Pt. II (1901), 578f.