“Ashkenazi jews, also known as Ashkenazic jews or Ashkenazim (Yehudei Ashkenaz, "the jews of Ashkenaz"), are the jews descended from the medieval jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north.
Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany. Thus, Ashkenazim or Ashkenazi jews are literally "German jews." Later, jews from Western and Central Europe came to be called "Ashkenaz" because the main centers of jewish learning were located in Germany.
Many Ashkenazi jews later migrated, largely eastward, forming communities in non German-speaking areas, including Hungary, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere between the 11th and 19th centuries.
___________
With them, they took and diversified Yiddish, a basically Germanic language with Hebrew influence. It had developed in medieval times as the lingua franca among Ashkenazi jews.
The jewish communities of three cities along the Rhine: Speyer, Worms and Mainz, created the SHUM league (SHUM after the first Hebrew letters of Spira, Warmatia and Magentza). The ShUM-cities are considered the cradle of the distinct Ashkenazi culture and liturgy.
Although in the 11th century, they comprised only 3 percent of the world’s jewish population, at their peak in 1931, Ashkenazi jews accounted for 92 percent of the world’s jews. Today they make up approximately 80 percent of jews worldwide.
_____________
Most jewish communities with extended histories in Europe are Ashkenazim, with the exception of those associated with the Mediterranean region.
The majority of the jewswho migrated from Europe to other continents in the past two centuries are Ashkenazim, Eastern Ashkenazim in particular.
This is especially true in the United States, where most of the 5.3 million American jewish population is Ashkenazi, representing the world’s single largest concentration of Ashkenazim. […]
___________
In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi jews is one whose ancestry can be traced to the jews of Central and Eastern Europe. For roughly a thousand years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe, despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other jews.
Human geneticists have identified genetic variations that have high frequencies among Ashkenazi jews, but not in the general European population.
This is true for patrilineal markers (Y-chromosome haplotypes) as well as for matrilineal markers (mitochondrial haplotypes).
______________
Since the middle of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi jews have intermarried, both with members of other jewish communities and with people of other nations and faiths, while some jews have also adopted children from other ethnic groups or parts of the world and raised them as jews.
Conversion to Judaism, rare for nearly 2,000 years, has become more common. jewish women and families who choose artificial insemination often choose a biological father who is not jewish, to avoid common autosomal recessive genetic diseases.
A study by Michael Seldin, a geneticist at the University of California Davis School of Medicine, found Ashkenazi jews to be a clear, relatively homogenous genetic subgroup.
______________
Strikingly, regardless of the place of origin, Ashkenazi jews can be grouped in the same genetic cohort — that is, regardless of whether an Ashkenazi jew’s ancestors came from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Lithuania, or any other place with a historical jewish population, they belong to the same ethnic group.
The research demonstrates the endogamy of the jewish population in Europe and lends further credence to the idea of Ashkenazi jews as an ethnic group.
Moreover, though intermarriage among jews of Ashkenazi descent has become increasingly more common, many Ultra-Orthodox jews, particularly members Hasidic or Hareidi sects, continue to marry exclusively fellow Ashkenazi jews.
This trend keeps Ashkenazi genes prevalent and also helps researchers further study the genes of Ashkenazi jews with relative ease. It is noteworthy that these Ultra-Orthodox jews often have extremely large families. […]
______________
Realignment in Israel
In Israel, the term Ashkenazi is now used in ways that have nothing to do with its original meaning; it is often applied to all jews of European background living in Israel, including sometimes for those whose ethnic background is actually Sephardic.
jews of any non-Ashkenazi background, including Mizrahi, Yemenite, Kurdish and others who have no connection with the Iberian Peninsula, have similarly come to be lumped together as Sephardic.
jews of mixed background are increasingly common, partly because of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi, and partly because many do not see such historic markers as relevant to their life experiences as jews.
______________
Religious Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel are obliged to follow the authority of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi in halakhic matters.
In this respect, a religiously Ashkenazi jew is an Israeli who is more likely to support certain religious interests in Israel, including certain political parties. These political parties result from the fact that a portion of the Israeli electorate votes for jewish religious parties; although the electoral map changes from one election to another, there are generally several small parties associated with the interests of religious Ashkenazi jews.
The role of religious parties, including small religious parties which play important roles as coalition members, results in turn from Israel’s composition as a complex society in which competing social, economic, and religious interests stand for election to the Knesset, a unicameral legislature with 120 seats.
______________
Origins
Although the historical record is very limited, there is a scholarly consensus of cultural, linguistic, and genetic evidence that the Ashkenazi jewish population originated in the Middle East.
jews have lived in Germany, or "Ashkenaz", at least since the early 4th century. They brought with them both Rabbinic Judaism and the Babylonian Talmudic culture that underlies it.
Yiddish, once spoken by the vast majority of Ashkenazi jewry, is a Germanic language that developed from the Middle High German vernacular, heavily influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic.
______________
Background in the Roman Empire
After the Roman empire had overpowered the jewish resistance in the First jewish–Roman War in Judea and destroyed the jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the complete Roman takeover of Judea followed the Bar Kochba rebellion of 132-135 CE.
Though their numbers were greatly reduced, jews continued populate large parts of Iuadea province (renamed to Palaestina), remaining a majority in Galilee for several hundred years. However, the Romans no longer recognized the authority of the Sanhedrin or any other jewish body, and jews were prohibited from living in Jerusalem.
Outside the Roman Empire, a large jewish community remained in Mesopotamia. Other jewish populations could be found dispersed around the Mediterranean region, with the largest concentrations in the Levant, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, including Rome. Smaller communities are recorded in southern Gaul (France), Spain, and North Africa.
______________
jews were denied full Roman citizenship until 212 CE, when Emperor Caracalla granted all free peoples this privilege. But, as a penalty for the first jewish Revolt, jews were required to pay a poll tax until the reign of Emperor Julian in 363.
In the late Roman Empire, jews were free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. […]
In Syria-Palaestina and Mesopotamia, where jewish religious scholarship was centered, the majority of jews were still engaged in farming, as demonstrated by the preoccupation of early Talmudic writings with agriculture.
In diaspora communities, trade was a common occupation, facilitated by the easy mobility of traders through the dispersed jewish communities.
______________
Throughout this period and into the early Middle Ages, some jews assimilated into the dominant Greek and Latin cultures, mostly through conversion to Christianity.
In Syria-Palaestina and Mesopotamia, the spoken language of jews continued to be Aramaic, but elsewhere in the diaspora, most jews spoke Greek. Conversion and assimilation were especially common within the Hellenized or Greek-speaking jewish communities, amongst whom the Septuagint and Aquila of Sinope (Greek translations and adaptations of the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible) were the source of scripture.
A remnant of this Greek-speaking jewish population (the Romaniotes) survives to this day.
______________
The Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century by tribes such as the Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, and Vandals caused massive economic and social instability within the western Empire, contributing to its decline.
In the late Roman Empire, jews are known to have lived in Cologne and Trier, as well as in what is now France. However, it is unclear whether there is any continuity between these late Roman communities and the distinct Ashkenazi jewish culture that began to emerge about 500 years later.
King Dagobert I of the Franks expelled the jews from his Merovingian kingdom in 629. jews in former Roman territories now faced new challenges as harsher anti-jewish Church rulings were enforced.
______________
Rabbinic Judaism moves to Ashkenaz
In Mesopotamia, and in Persian lands free of Roman imperial domination, jewish life fared much better. Since the conquest of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar II, this community had always been the leading diaspora community, a rival to the leadership of Judea.
After conditions for jews began to deteriorate in Roman-controlled lands, many of the religious leaders of Judea and the Galilee fled to the east. At the academies of Pumbeditha and Sura near Babylon, Rabbinic Judaism based on Talmudic learning began to emerge and assert its authority over jewish life throughout the diaspora.
Rabbinic Judaism created a religious mandate for literacy, requiring all Jewish males to learn Hebrew and read from the Torah. This emphasis on literacy and learning a second language would eventually be of great benefit to the jews, allowing them to take on commercial and financial roles within Gentile societies where literacy was often quite low.
______________
After the Islamic conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, new opportunities for trade and commerce opened between the Middle East and Western Europe.
The vast majority of jews now lived in Islamic lands. Urbanization, trade, and commerce within the Islamic world allowed jews, as a highly literate people, to abandon farming and live in cities, engaging in occupations where they could use their skills.
The influential and well organized jewish community of Mesopotamia, now centered in Baghdad, became the center of the jewish world. In the Caliphate of Baghdad, jews took on many of the financial occupations that they would later hold in the cities of Ashkenaz.
______________
jewish traders from Baghdad began to travel to the west, renewing jewish life in the western Mediterranean region. They brought with them Rabbinic Judaism and Babylonian Talmudic scholarship.
Charlemagne’s expansion of the Frankish empire around 800, including northern Italy and Rome, brought on a brief period of stability and unity in Western Europe.
This created opportunities for jewish merchants to settle once again north of the Alps. Charlemagne granted the jews freedoms similar to those once enjoyed under the Roman Empire.
______________
Returning once again to Frankish lands, many jewish merchants took on occupations in finance and commerce, including money lending, or usury.
(Church legislation banned Christians from lending money in exchange for interest.) From Charlemagne’s time to the present, there is a well-documented record of jewish life in northern Europe, and by the 11th century, when Rashi of Troyes wrote his commentaries, Ashkenazi jews had emerged also as interpreters and commentators on the Torah and Talmud…”.
[it is from Rashi’s lineage that almost all Ashkenazi’s descend - namely two of his three daughters. More than half of all Ashkenazi come from 4 women.]
