what ruler allowed the hebrews to return to jerusalem
Return to Zion The return to Zion (Hebrew: שִׁיבָת צִיּוֹן‎, Shivat Tzion, or שבי ציון‎, Shavei Tzion, lit. Zion returnees) refers to the event in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the emperor Cyrus the Great, the conqueror of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE, also known as Cyrus's edict. The term was first coined after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.[citation needed]
Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) Israel continued to exist within the reduced territory as an independent kingdom until around 720 BCE, when it was again invaded by Assyria and the rest of the population deported. The Bible relates that the population of Israel was exiled, becoming known as the Ten Lost Tribes, leaving only the Tribe of Judah, the Tribe of Simeon (that was "absorbed" into Judah), the Tribe of Benjamin and the people of the Tribe of Levi who lived among them of the original Israelites nation in the southern Kingdom of Judah. However, in their book The Bible Unearthed, authors Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman estimate that only a fifth of the population (about 40,000) were actually resettled out of the area during the two deportation periods under Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II.[1]:221 Many also fled south to Jerusalem, which appears to have expanded in size fivefold during this period, requiring a new wall to be built, and a new source of water (Siloam) to be provided by King Hezekiah.