5 Mind-Blowing Differences Between Sephardic & Ashkenazi Jews | Big Jewish Ideas

In America, if someone imagines a Jew, it's almost always an Ashkenazi and that's because there are about 7 million Jews in America, only about half a million are not Ashkenazi, but that's not true all over the world. world, in Israel, the majority of Jews are not Ashkenazi. And yet, most Americans know nothing about other types of Jews, specifically Sephardic culture, so, in no particular order, here are five surprising

differences

between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. A quick review of who these two groups are. Ashkenazi Jews originally came from Germany. France and Eastern Europe, while Sephardic Jews originally came from Portugal and Spain and then lived in all of these places, in particular, there is a lot of overlap in who lived where and not all Jews fit neatly into these two categories, not by a long shot.

For example, these rocky Jews are largely from the Middle East and share many customs with Sephardic Jews, to the point that in Israel many think of them as a single group and then there are Ethiopian Jews, Italian Jews and many others. , but in the United States these are the two largest groups of Jews. and living in these separate areas created many

differences

Beyond the tone of their skin color number one, the food Bagels, matzah ball soup, gefilte, fish, kugel, all Ashkenazim come from countries where Ashkenazi Jews used to live and are still served in those countries with different names think the climate is cold Eastern European Fair arafina shakshuka mufleta all Sephardim come from warmer countries are often more colorful and can actually be spicy in other words, both groups have adopted and adapted dishes from the countries where they lived there are foods that both groups eat variations of challah and sholand, but even those can look quite different and, more importantly, both groups have a long tradition of keeping kosher Jewish dietary rules, but even within that there are notable differences in the holiday of Pesach, for example, we.

They don't eat bread either. Ashkenazi Jews also do not traditionally eat kidneys, which include all of these, making the dishes very different at the Seder. It also means that on Passover there are some Ashkenazi Jews who cannot eat at Sephardic juice houses if they are both traditionally observant in their own way. Jews can go their whole lives without realizing that there are a whole variety of Jewish recipes that they didn't know existed and that are nothing like the dishes they grew up with, number two, the prayers and the music, the services of prayer. Both groups have the same structure and overlap greatly in terms of wording, but even though most of the word learning is the same The melodies are quite different here there is an Ashkenazi one and here is the Sephardic elements of the synagogue and the way the seating is arranged are also quite different, you can even hear the cultural influences on popular music in Israel through the years, many of the Israeli popular songs come from Ashkenazi melodies and today pop music Israeli has many Spartan and Mizrahi influences, the third language, Yiddish, which combines Hebrew.

German was only spoken by Ashkenazi Jews, so they were the ones busy with gnoshing and kavaching. Sephardic Jews had a variety of other languages, including Ladino and Hakatia, which in part combine Hebrew and Spanish, to name just a couple of the many languages ​​that are both Ashkenazi and Sephardic. The Jews continued to maintain Hebrew, but even there they had different ways of pronouncing certain letters and words. Many learned Hebrew to pray and understand sacred texts such as the Torah. Today, both sides primarily speak the language of the country where they live. number four, laws and traditions Jewish laws date back to before the split between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities, so they share many of the same laws, the general rules about kosher and Shabbat, for example, but for hundreds of years , even if there always was some.

Communication between the two sides, the two groups developed independently at one point in the 16th century, it was incredibly difficult to classify and understand what exact Jewish laws to follow, so around the same time, the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities began to work in compiling his own set. of rules in one place for a time, neither side realized that the other side was simultaneously working on a similar project when the rabbi on the Ashkenazi side realized he was writing a competing book instead of creating two separate law books, he decided to instead write a complement to the recently published book on the Sephardic side called schulhan aruh which mentions the variations between the Spartan and Ashkenazi traditions and means that in most cases they could share the same set of laws. rules.

Here are just a couple of examples. Of the many Min hageem rules and customs that are different between the two groups, Sephardic Jews will name a child after a living relative, while Ashkenazi Jews will only name a child after someone who has passed away, too. the Ashkenazi Towers looked like this and the Sephardic Towers looked like this at weddings only Sephardic brides traditionally receive henna and it is only Ashkenazi brides who surround the groom seven times. We can make a complete list of the top five different wedding traditions. Number five, the movements. This difference is more abstract.

We get to the very heart of who they are. Two groups are most common when Americans think about the different types of Jews the denomination is associated with, such as Reform Conservatives and Orthodox, but this separation between the movements only occurred on the Ashkenazi side, the Reform movement that broke away. of traditional Judaism was partly influenced by the Protestants who recently separated from the Catholics towards the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, they had no such point of reference, they developed in a completely different way, to quote Micah Goodman, the movements and countermovements that They complicated Jewish identity in Europe and barely touched Jews in the Muslim world.

While Jews faced serious problems under both Christian and Muslim rule, only one such set of circumstances led to a split between conservative Reform and Orthodox Jews, the influence of local environments later going beyond what people realized. What the Jews wore or what they ate, colored the very way they saw the world today. These are not two groups geographically isolated from each other, there is much more interaction between the two, for example, when Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews marry, they have to choose which family customs to follow and interact and discuss these unique customs. differences the Jewish people continue to grow together despite the many differences both sides share a central connection with the rest of the Jewish world there is something special that many Jews feel when they meet other Jews in other parts of the world allows the traveler to jump into a local place The Jewish community in another country is excited to find a synagogue or hear Hebrew, even if it is very different from what they are used to.

The difficult question that remains is what it means to be part of a town and what it takes for everyone to continue growing. together