How exactly do Classical Dispensationalists define "Israel"?

One of the defining characteristics of Dispensationalism is the distinction between Israel and the Church. Israel, meaning the Jewish people, was given specific promises regarding the land of Israel, which are not applicable to the Church in any way but to the Jews only. As I understand it, Dispensationalists believe these will be fulfilled during the Millennium. I am still trying to wrap my head around the Dispensationalist idea of Israelology, by which they mean the study of the Biblical concept of "Israel." They would define it as an ethnic/genetic category, as the descendants of Israel, a.k.a. Jacob. In Orthodox Judaism, one is considered a Jew if your mother is Jewish or if you are a Halahically valid convert to Judaism, i.e. it is both matrilineal and by conversion. My understanding is that Dispensationalism, at least in its classical form, would exclude converts to Judaism from their definition of "Israel" (see for instance this article ). **What is unclear to me is whether physical descent is defined (by Dispensationalists) matrilineally or patrilineally or some mixture. For instance, if my maternal grandfather and/or paternal grandmother are part of Israel, am I?** I have not been able to find a source that gives a well-defined answer to this question. ChatGPT told me that the Dispensationalist theologian Arnold Fruchtenbaum, head of Ariel Ministries argued in his book *Israelology: The Missing Link in Systematic Theology* for a patrilineal-only definition of Israel, but without having a copy of that book, I haven't been able to track down any explicit statement to that effect. The quote from Jon Mark Ruthven cited in this article suggests that Ruthven might include either matrilineal or patrilineal descent: > The tradition of identifying a Jew as one whose mother was Jew may represent an attempt to preserve the genetic identity of Jews in the Diaspora. Before that, Jews were those whose fathers were Jews. During the dispersion, oppression of the Jews made it difficult to know who someone’s father was, due to the frequent rape of Jewish women by their oppressors, in times of war and peace. Conversions to Judaism, of course, complicate this purely genetic model somewhat. But the children of these concerts will marry Jews and raise their children to do the same. So Jewish genes soon predominate. However, the quote doesn't define what "Jewish genes" means. It surely does not imply that a genetic Jew is someone whose genetic material is mostly derived from the patriarchs, as that would almost certainly not be applicable to anyone at all who is separated from them by more than two generations. He also does not say whether the shift from patrilineal to matrilineal was legitimate as regards the covenants. To be clear, I am asking about the full Israelite identity, as Dispensationalists often separate partaking fully in the covenants verses spiritual blessings only. I am asking about those who are full partakers in the OT covenants -- is it common among Dispensationalists to believe that this is exclusively for those who are patrilineally descended from Jacob? How is this Israelite identity determined?