Yahwism

 The original religion of the Hebrews was Yahwism, a polytheistic religion derived from the earlier Canaanite religion followed by Phoenicians.  The original central god was El, from which the word Israel is derived, but later the creator god Yahweh became central, and then sometimes El and Yahweh were held as the same god.  Elements of monotheism may have appeared in the 8th century BCE, and this was certainly true after the Babylonian Exile (when 42,000 descendants of exiled Israelites returned to the then Persian province of Yehud and were regarded as the original people, and the descendants of the people who had mostly never left and a few others who had moved in were somewhat displaced).  The Persians themselves had become Zoroastrian monotheists centuries earlier, and there are other similarities between Zoroastrianism and Second Temple Judaism.

I've previously blogged that "little was known" about the original Hebrew religion, but now I see it has a name and entry in Wikipedia FWIW.

Jerusalem was named by Canaanites after the Canaanite goddess of dusk and peace, which was certainly ironic for a city that has been reconquered 44 times.

The Phoenicians (who never regarded themselves as a "nation" but as a collection of city states such as Sidon and Tyre which are mentioned over 100 times in the Bible) were notably multicultural, peaceful and rich manufacturers*, traders and merchants.

In contrast, the Hebrews to the south of the Phoenician cities were often fanatical and notably hostile to their surrounding groups, a tendency even more visible in the Second Temple Hasmonean era (in earlier Second Temple societies, Judeans were mere subjects of other empires including Persia and Greece).   After Bar Kochba, for 1700 years Rabbinic (then Talmudic) Judaism recast itself as a universal religion of peace and global healing, and actually was a notably peaceful and pro-multicultural religion, far more so than the other Second Temple offshoot Christianity also proclaiming peace and love and which was also invented by Jews.  Sadly traditional Rabbinic/Talmudic Judaism was mostly supplanted in the 20th century by ethnic supremacist Zionist Judaism--as bad or worse than the bad old Hebrew or Hasmonean days.

Polytheistic societies are generally more tolerant of other cultures, and a prevailing view is that they are most often more peaceful.  The largest wars and empires have followed the rise of monotheism, though that could be coincidental.  Yahwism was somewhere in between--it was initially polytheistic but devolved into monolatry, with the local deity El being theologically merged with Yahweh to become the one god that needed to be worshipped.

(*The famous purple dye that never fades was not merely extracted, but made by Phoenicians (the greek word for "purple people") from sea snails in a complex manufacturing process that has never been duplicated.  And Phoenicians made other luxury goods and trinkets.  They were pioneers in mass production, as well as the phonetic alphabet.  Phoenicians pioneered the global trading business that Jews later took over because Phoenician culture was lost after their cities were defeated. OTHO, Zoroastrian Persians restored Second Temple Judaism, similarly monotheistic.  By 0 BCE, most Jews already lived outside of Judea.)