Ashkenazim

Ashkenazim, one of the two major groupings of Jews by geographical origin and the corresponding cultural tradition. The term distinguishes the medieval Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe and their descendants from those of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, known as Sephardim. In the 10th century, the biblical eponym Ashkenaz (see Genesis 10:3) was used by Jews as the Hebrew name for Germany, where a distinctive Jewish community was emerging. From the Rhineland, Ashkenazic Jews moved eastward into Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries; many of them migrated to North America and Israel during the 19th and 20th centuries. Most American Jews today are descendants of eastern European Ashkenazim. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim differ in their laws, customs, liturgy, and language. Yiddish (Judeo-German) is the traditional vernacular of the Ashkenazim; that of the Sephardim is Ladino (Judeo-Castilian). Today, about 85 percent of all Jews are Ashkenazim.