In America, if someone is picturing a Jew, it's almost always an Ashkenazi one. And that's because of the
roughly seven 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. Before getting into the list, a quick review of who
these two groups are. Ashkenazi Jews originally
come 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. Mizrahi 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, Italkim, 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, matzah 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 fare. Adafina, shakshuka,
mofletta, 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
countries where they lived. There are foods that both groups eat, such variations of challah and cholent, 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, while neither eat bread, Ashkenazi Jews also don't
traditionally eat kitniyot, which include all of these. It makes for very different
dishes at the Seder. It also means that on Passover
there are some Ashkenazi Jews who aren't able to eat at
Sephardic Jews' houses, if both are traditionally
observant in their own ways. 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 wording is the same, the melodies are quite different. Here's an Ashkenazi one. And here's a 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
came from Ashkenazi tunes. And today, Israeli pop
music has a lot of Sephardic and Mizrahi influences. Number three: the languages. Yiddish, which combined
Hebrew with German, was only spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. So they were the ones busy
noshing and kvetching. What chutzpah! Sephardic Jews had a
variety of other languages, including Ladino and Haketia, which, in part, combine
Hebrew and Spanish, to name just a couple
of the many languages. 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 to 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 "Shulchan Aruch"
that called out the variations between the Sephardic
and Ashkenazi traditions. And it meant that in most cases they could share the same set of rules. Here's just a couple examples
of the many rules and customs, minhagim, 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 Torahs look like this and Sephardic Torahs look like this. At weddings, only Sephardic
brides traditionally get henna, and it's only Ashkenazi brides who circle the groom seven times. We could 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 denominations, 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 countermovements "that complicated Jewish
identity in Europe "barely touched Jews in the Muslim world." While Jews faced serious troubles 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 in 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?
