Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews are a group of Jews who, following the involuntary displacement from Judea in c. AD 70, lived in Central and Eastern Europe.

Ashkenazi Jews
(יהודי אשכנזcode: he is deprecated Y'hudey Ashkenaz in Ashkenazi Hebrew)

Total population
10–11.2 million
Regions with significant populations
United States	5–6 million
Israel	2.8 million
Russia	194,000–500,000
Argentina	300,000
United Kingdom	260,000
Canada	240,000
France	200,000
Germany	200,000
Ukraine	150,000
Australia	120,000
South Africa	80,000
Belarus	80,000
Hungary	75,000
Chile	70,000
Belgium	30,000
Brazil	80,000
Netherlands	30,000
Moldova	30,000
Poland	25,000
Mexico	18,500
Sweden	18,000
Latvia	10,000
Romania	10,000
Austria	9,000
New Zealand	5,000
Azerbaijan	4,300
Lithuania	4,000
Czech Republic	3,000
Slovakia	3,000
Estonia	1,000
Languages
Yiddish Modern: Local languages, primarily English, Hebrew, Russian
Religion
Judaism, some secular, irreligious
Related ethnic groups
Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Samaritans, Kurds, other Levantines (Druzes, Assyrians, Arabs), Mediterranean groups (Italians, Spaniards)

Name

In Hebrew and Yiddish, Ashkenaz means German.

Classical antiquity

It is believed that after the Jews were expelled from the Land of Israel (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, pronunciation: ʼÉreṣ Yiśrāʼēl / Eretz Yisrael) by the Romans, they were abducted to Italy as slaves, while some believe that they went there for trade.

Middle Ages

After a few centuries, a founding group emigrated into Central Europe where a genetic bottleneck occurred, and then later into Eastern Europe and Russia, and most Ashkenazim can consider themselves the descendants of these few founding members.

Due to pogroms in the Middle Ages, mainly in Germany, many Jews fled to Poland and Lithuania, and from there they spread over the rest of Eastern Europe. They then adopted the Yiddish language. The Ashkenazi Jews joined together with a second Jewish population who are called West Knaanic Jews. The language of the West Knaanic Jews had been Slavic.

Modern age

In the 17th century, avoiding persecution, many Jews moved to and settled in Western Europe. After that, two terms, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, became commonly used: The former indicates the Jews who worshiped in the German way and spoke Yiddish, the latter indicates the Jews who worshiped in the Spanish way and spoke the Ladino language. They differ in language, cultural tradition and worship style, yet both are closely related in terms of genetics.

20th century

During World War II, at least 6,000,000 Jews, 4,000,000 of whom were Ashkenazim, were killed in the Holocaust. The Holocaust destroyed the once large Jewish communities and the Yiddish language in Europe.

Many of the surviving Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to countries such as Israel, Canada, Argentina, Australia and the United States after the war. As of 2018, Ashkenazim are around 75% of the 12.2 Million Jews of the world. They are also the mainstream of Israeli politics. Famous Ashkenazim include Albert Einstein, George Gershwin, Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka.

Ashkenazi Jews Media

• Wormsjews.jpg

  Jews from Worms (Germany) wearing the mandatory yellow badge, 16th century

• Erfurter Synagoge.jpg

  The Old Synagogue in Erfurt, Germany is thought to be the oldest synagogue building intact in Europe

• Juden 1881.JPG

  The distribution of Jews in Central Europe in 1881.

• Yidish-dialects-ru.png

  Western vs. Eastern Yiddish dialects

• Prager Beerdigungsbruderschaft.jpg

  Prague's chevra kadisha, or burial society (oil, c. 1800)

Related pages

• Mizrahi Jews
• Sephardi Jews
• Maghrebi Jews