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

in America if someone is picturing a Jew it's almost always an Ashkenazi one and that's because of the roughly 7 million Jews in America only about half a million aren't Ashkenazi but that's not true across the world in Israel the majority of Jews are not Ashkenazi and yet most Americans don't know the first thing about other types of Jews specifically Sephardic culture so in no particular order here are five surprising differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews foreign [Music] 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 later lived in all of these places notably there's a lot of overlap in who lived where and not all Jews neatly fit into these two categories not by a long shot these rockly Jews for instance are largely from the Middle East and they share many customs with the Sephardic Jews so much so that in Israel many think of them as one group and then there are Ethiopian Jews Italian and many others but in America these are the two biggest groups of Jews and living in

these separate areas created many differences Beyond just the shade of the color of their skin number one the food Bagels matzo ball soup gefilte fish kugel all Ashkenazi they come from countries where Ashkenazi Jews used to live and they're still served in those countries under different names think cold weather Eastern European Fair arafina shakshuka mufleta all Sephardic coming from warmer countries they're often more colorful and might actually be spicy in other words both groups have taken on and adapted dishes from the countries where they lived there are foods that both groups eat such as variations

of challah and sholand but even those can look quite different and importantly both groups have a long tradition of keeping kosher the Jewish dietary rules but even within that there are notable differences on the holiday of Passover for instance we'll neither eat bread Ashkenazi Jews also don't traditionally eat kidneyote which includes all of these it makes for very different dishes at the Seder it also means that in Passover there are some Ashkenazi Jews who aren't able to eat at Sephardic juice houses if both are traditionally observant in their own way Jews can go their entire

life without realizing there's a whole other variety of Jewish recipes that they didn't know existed and look nothing like the dishes they grew up with number two the prayers and music the prayer services of both groups have the same structure and greatly overlap in terms of wording but even though most of the word learning is the same The Melodies are quite different here's an Ashkenazi one [Music] and here's the Sephardic one elements of the synagogue such as how the seats are arranged are also quite different you can even hear the cultural influences in popular music

in Israel through the years many of the Israeli folk songs come from Ashkenazi tunes and today Israeli pop music has a lot of spartic and Mizrahi influences [Music] number three the languages Yiddish which combined Hebrew with German was only spoken by Ashkenazi Jews so they were the ones busy 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 is both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews continued to maintain Hebrew but even there they had different ways of

pronouncing certain letters and words many learned Hebrew in order to both pray and understand the holy texts like the Torah these days both sides mostly speak the language of the country where they're living number four the laws and traditions Jewish laws go all the way back predating the split between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities so they share many of the same laws the general rules around kosher and Shabbat for instance but for hundreds of years even if there was always some communication between the two sides the two groups developed independently at one point in the

1500s it was incredibly difficult to sort through and understand which exact Jewish laws to follow so at roughly the same time both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities started working on collecting their own set of rules into one place for a while neither side realized the other side was simultaneously working on a similar project when the rabbi on the Ashkenazi side realized that he was writing a competing book rather than creating two separate law books he decided that he'd instead write an add-on for the book recently published on the Sephardic side called the schulhan aruh that

called out the variations between the spartic and Ashkenazi traditions and it meant that in most cases they could share the same set of rules here's just a couple of examples of the many rules and Customs Min hageem that are different between the two groups Sephardic Jews will name a child after a living relative whereas Ashkenazi Jews will only name a kid after someone who has passed away also Ashkenazi Torres looked like this and Sephardic Torres looked like this at weddings only Sephardic Brides traditionally get henna and it's only Ashkenazi Brides who Circle the groom seven

times we can make a whole top five list of just different wedding traditions number five the movements this difference is more abstract getting to the very heart of who these two groups are most often when Americans think about the different types of Jews it has to do with the denomination such as reform conservative and Orthodox but this separation between the movements only happened on the Ashkenazi side the reform movement splitting off from traditional Judaism was in part influenced by the Protestants recently splitting off from the Catholics to Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews they had no such

reference point they developed in a completely different manner to quote Micah Goodman the movements and counter movements that complicated Jewish identity in Europe barely touched Jews in the Muslim World while Jews faced serious trouble doubles under both Christian and Muslim rule only one of those sets of circumstances led to a division between reform conservative and Orthodox jewry the influence of local environments then went beyond what people wore or what Jews ate it colored the very way in which they saw the world today these are not two groups geographically isolated from each other there's a lot

more interaction between the two for instance when Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews marry each other they have to choose which family Customs to follow and an interacting And discussing these unique differences the Jewish people continue to grow together despite the many differences both sides share a core connection to the rest of the Jewish world there's something special so many Jews feel when they meet other Jews elsewhere in the world it allows a traveler to jump into a local Jewish community in another country excited to find a synagogue or hear Hebrew even if it's quite different from

what they're used to the difficult question that remains is what does it mean to be part of one people and what will it take to all keep growing together