sephardi and ashkansi

i'm off to celebrate pesach right now, but i thought i'd hilight the 2 different cultures in judasim as nobody thinks i'm jewish myself
ashkanasi is the western culture, the one most people assume jewish culture is becuase of the fame of the holocaust. european jews used to speak yiddish. sephardi is the eastern culture, from the med, asia and the middle east and tended to speak ladino. there are lamguage, music and food differences and when i next come on here, i'll tell you more about it

There is actually another Jewish ethnic "division" that few know about: Mizrachi. It's a term that overlaps somewhat with Sephardi, but emphasizes Middle Eastern and North African heritage rather than Spanish. This group includes non-Sephardic Jews from the Arab world, the Gruzim, Persian Jews, Bukharan Jews, Iraqi Jews (including the Baghdadi Jews of India), Kurdish Jews, and Yemenite Jews among various others. The term is an Israeli invention, meant to refer to immigrants from the Arab and adjoining Muslim world.

P.S. Happy Passover everyone!

I would LOVE to know more about this -- it's the first time I've heard of these cultural divisions!

As I've covered Mizrachi already, I'll do the other two.

Ashkenazi Jews--Jews dominantly in Central and Eastern Europe. Therefore, most of the Jews that died in the Holocaust were Ashkenazic. Most Ashkenazic communities were descendants of medieval communities in Europe. These are the Jews that most of the world is familiar with--they spoke Yiddish, lived in shetls, studied Torah/Talmud etc. Traditional Jewish foods such as gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, and brisket are all Ashkenazic in origin.

Sephardic Jews--Jews that originate from the Iberian Peninsula area (Spain, Portugal, and North Africa). They traditionally spoke Ladino and contributed greatly to public life when the Muslims ruled Spain, involved in the study and expansion of philosophy, poetry, diplomacy, medicine, literature, and various other subjects. They were the Jews expelled during the Inquisition in 1492. As they lived in a separate area and were subjected to a different culture, Sephardic traditions tend to differ from Ashkenazic ones. Their trope for reading Torah (Jewish cantillation--used as a guide to chanting the sacred texts) as well as their prayer services are different from the Ashkenazic. In addition, their everyday customs may differ. Using a broader example, Sephardic Jews usually eat corn, rice, peanuts, and beans on Passover while Ashkenazic Jews generally do not.

Thanks, Moorje!

Can you recommend any particular books for me to read up on this?

I'm glad to see you're so interested in this!

A History of the Jewish People by Hayim Ben-Sasson covers all of Jewish history in more depth than I could possibly convey here. However, that might be too much information for you or way beyond your interest.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067439731...5Fencoding=UTF8

I haven't really found a book that talks about all the Jewish ethnic divisions together. My knowledge comes from my school education.

For Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, you might want to try Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times by Zion Zohar.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081479706...glance&n=283155

The best picture of Ashkenazic Jewry can probably be found in books about the shtetl. In the shtetl, Judaism was a way of life. You might want to try Shtetl: The History of a Small Town and an Extinguished World by Eva Hoffman.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...4649269-5969511

i'm mitzrachi, but always say i'm sephardi becuase its exhausting explaining it to people! which are you moorje?

I'm a combo. I'm half Ashkenazi and half Sephardi. Makes for interesting discussions.

indeed from which side and which countries specifically? my family were bagdad bombay jews, my mothers side being more recently israeli. she was born there in the 50's. do you go to israel at all?

and doesn't it annoy you when everyone thinks ashkanasi is the only jewish culture? people don't think i'm jewish becuase i don't eat chicken soup!

Ashkenazi-Dad (Europe in general)
Sephardi-Mom (originally from Spain)

No, I've never been to Israel. My family is too afraid to go. I'll be going next month though with some friends so I'm terribly excited.

I don't think I've ever been annoyed that people don't know about the other ethnics divisions. It's not really common knowledge if you're not Jewish, and even then there are always some Jews who aren't aware of it.

it annoys me when other jews think i'm not jewish! israel is such a great place, i've been going there since i was born, you'll love it

Is the Golem legend exclusive to the Ashkanasi culture, then?

Although stories about the Golem appear earlier, the most famous narrative involves the Maharal of Prague, a 16th century rabbi who is said to have created the Golem to protect the Prague ghetto. This classic tradition seems to have been largely confined to the then Czechoslovakia and eventually spread to the rest of Europe. I don't believe that Sephardic or Mizrahic Jews would have been aware of this particular story, but an "unshaped form" is mentioned in the Bible and in various other Jewish texts, so perhaps the concept was not foreign to them.

i think the particular stories and name and shape of the golem (shrek in modern times ) is ashkanasi. but there are such things in sehpardi and mitzrachi caulture. in morocco they had the custom of painting blue on the houses to ward of evil things, (i was shown in israel) not sure if they still do it now