Com on, Marty, you knew I meant the Twelve. In regard to the Twelve, disciples and apostles are used interchangeably. Sheer pedantry.

 A reconstituted Israel was an expectation of apocalyptic Messianism (I don't have the cite handy; I may have read this in Sanders). You have no idea what Jews thought about what Jesus was saying, except as recorded in the NT and the few non-Christian sources of the 1st-2nd centuries. Wow!