The Jewish autonomy, mentioned in Ezra 5:8,, was the settling place of the Zion Returnees from Babylonian exile, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and other tribes that had assembled there. The autonomy's Name in conjunction with the Judea area contributed to the continuing process of word "Jew" being associated with the Israelites, and it functioned as a self-contained geographic and religious entity which even issued its own small silver coins inscribed with the three letters Yehud.