Shem is traditionally considered the ancestor of the Israelites. In Genesis, Shem is one of Noah’s three sons, alongside Ham and Japheth, and the genealogy in Genesis 11 traces Abraham’s line through Shem.
That genealogy proceeds from Shem to Arpachshad, then through a sequence of descendants to Terah and his son Abram, later called Abraham. Israelite ancestry is then connected to Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob, whose name becomes Israel.
Shem is also the traditional eponymous ancestor associated with the “Semitic” language family, although modern linguistic classification uses the term in a technical historical sense rather than as a simple genealogical label.
Ham and Japheth have their own roles in Genesis’s post-Flood genealogy. The biblical text does not present them as the direct ancestral line leading to the Israelites.