Ashkenazi Jews

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Ashkenazi Jews
יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז‎ (Yehudei Ashkenaz)
אשכנזישע יידן‎ (Ashkenazishe Yidn)
Total population
10[1]–11.2[2] million
Regions with significant populations
United States5–6 million[3]
Israel2.8 million[1][4]
Russia194,000–500,000; according to the FJCR, up to 1 million of Jewish descent
Argentina300,000
United Kingdom260,000
Canada240,000
France200,000
Germany200,000
Ukraine150,000
Australia120,000
South Africa80,000
Belarus80,000
Brazil80,000
Hungary75,000
Chile70,000
Belgium30,000
Netherlands30,000
Moldova30,000
Italy28,000
Poland25,000
Mexico18,500
Sweden18,000
Latvia10,000
Romania10,000
Austria9,000
Turkey7,000
New Zealand5,000
Colombia4,900
Azerbaijan4,300
Lithuania4,000
Czech Republic3,000
Slovakia3,000
Ireland2,500
Estonia1,000
Languages
  • Predominantly spoken:
  • Traditional:
  • Yiddish[5]
Religion
Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, other Jewish ethnic divisions and Samaritans; various Middle Eastern and European ethnic groups
The Jews in Central Europe (1881)
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Ashkenazi Jews (

romanized: Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim,[a] constitute a Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE.[8] They traditionally spoke Yiddish[8] and largely migrated towards northern and eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages due to persecution.[9][10] Hebrew was primarily used as a literary and sacred language until its 20th-century revival as a common language
in Israel.

Ashkenazim adapted their traditions to Europe and underwent a transformation in their interpretation of Judaism.[11] In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Jews who remained in or returned to historical German lands experienced a cultural reorientation. Under the influence of the Haskalah and the struggle for emancipation, as well as the intellectual and cultural ferment in urban centres, some gradually abandoned Yiddish in favor of German and developed new forms of Jewish religious life and cultural identity.[12]

Throughout the centuries, Ashkenazim made significant contributions to

music, and science.[13][14][15][16]

As a proportion of the world Jewish population, Ashkenazim were estimated to be 3% in the 11th century, rising to 92% in 1930 near the population's peak.[17] The Ashkenazi population was significantly diminished by the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II which killed some six million Jews, affecting almost every European Jewish family.[18][19] In 1933, prior to World War II, the estimated worldwide Jewish population was 15.3 million.[20] Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio D. Pergola implied that Ashkenazim comprised 65–70% of Jews worldwide in 2000,[21] while other estimates suggest more than 75%.[22] As of 2013, the population was estimated to be between 10 million[1] and 11.2 million.[2]

Genetic studies indicate that Ashkenazim have both Levantine and European (mainly southern European) ancestry. These studies draw diverging conclusions about the degree and sources of European admixture, with some focusing on the European genetic origin in Ashkenazi maternal lineages, contrasting with the predominantly Middle Eastern genetic origin in paternal lineages.[23][24][25][26][27]

Etymology

The name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of

Table of Nations (Genesis 10). The name of Gomer has often been linked to the Cimmerians
.

The Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from

ו‎ with a nun נ‎.[30][31][32]

In

Minni and Ararat (corresponding to Urartu), called on by God to resist Babylon.[32][33] In the Yoma tractate of the Babylonian Talmud the name Gomer is rendered as Germania, which elsewhere in rabbinical literature was identified with Germanikia in northwestern Syria, but later became associated with Germania. Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia, viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes, as early as a 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius.[34]

In the 10th-century History of Armenia of

Khazaria.[38]

Sometime in the

Germany, earlier known as Loter,[32][34] where, especially in the Rhineland communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the most important Jewish communities arose.[40] Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz (Ashkenazi language) to describe Yiddish, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to the Crusaders as Ashkenazim.[34] Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany and France.[41]

History

Like other Jewish ethnic groups, the Ashkenazi originate from the Israelites[42][43][44] and Hebrews[45][46] of historical Israel and Judah. Ashkenazi Jews share a significant amount of ancestry with other Jewish populations and derive their ancestry mostly from populations in the Middle East, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe.[47] Other than their origins in ancient Israel, the question of how Ashkenazi Jews came to exist as a distinct community is unknown, and has given rise to several theories.[48][49]

Early Jewish communities in Europe

Beginning in the fourth century BCE, Jewish colonies sprang up in southern Europe, including the Aegean Islands, Greece, and Italy. Jews left ancient Israel for a number of causes, including a number of

push and pull factors
. More Jews moved into these communities as a result of wars, persecution, unrest, and for opportunities in trade and commerce.

Jews migrated to southern Europe from the Middle East voluntarily for opportunities in trade and commerce. Following Alexander the Great's conquests, Jews migrated to Greek settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean, spurred on by economic opportunities. Jewish economic migration to southern Europe is also believed to have occurred during the Roman period.

In 63 BCE, the Siege of Jerusalem saw the Roman Republic conquer Judea, and thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves. After gaining their freedom, they settled permanently in Rome as traders.[50] It is likely that there was an additional influx of Jewish slaves taken to southern Europe by Roman forces after the capture of Jerusalem by the forces of Herod the Great with assistance from Roman forces in 37 BCE. It is known that Jewish war captives were sold into slavery after the suppression of a minor Jewish revolt in 53 BCE, and some were probably taken to southern Europe.[51]

Regarding Jewish settlements founded in southern Europe during the Roman era,

Puteoli attested in 4 BC, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce."[52][53][54]

Jewish-Roman Wars

Main article: Jewish–Roman wars

The first and second centuries CE saw a series of unsuccessful large-scale Jewish revolts against Rome. The Roman suppression of these revolts led to wide-scale destruction, a very high toll of life and enslavement. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) erupted. Judea's countryside was devastated, and many were killed, displaced or sold into slavery.[55][56][57][58] Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina, and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina.[59][60] Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt.[61]

With their national aspirations crushed and widespread devastation in Judea, despondent Jews migrated out of Judea in the aftermath of both revolts, and many settled in southern Europe. In contrast to the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the movement was by no means a singular, centralized event, and a Jewish diaspora had already been established before.

During both of these rebellions, many Jews were captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, 97,000 Jews were sold as slaves in the aftermath of the first revolt.[62] In one occasion, Vespasian reportedly ordered 6,000 Jewish prisoners of war from Galilee to work on the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece.[63] Jewish slaves and their children eventually gained their freedom and joined local free Jewish communities.[64]

Late antiquity

Many Jews were denied full

Julian in 363 CE. In the late Roman Empire, Jews were free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. However, after Christianity became the official religion of Rome and Constantinople
in 380 CE, Jews were increasingly marginalized.

The

better source needed
]

Sporadic[67] epigraphic evidence in gravesite excavations, particularly in Brigetio (Szőny), Aquincum (Óbuda), Intercisa (Dunaújváros), Triccinae (Sárvár), Savaria (Szombathely), Sopianae (Pécs) in Hungary, and Mursa (Osijek) in Croatia, attest to the presence of Jews after the 2nd and 3rd centuries where Roman garrisons were established.[68] There was a sufficient number of Jews in Pannonia to form communities and build a synagogue. Jewish troops were among the Syrian soldiers transferred there, and replenished from the Middle East. After 175 CE Jews and especially Syrians came from Antioch, Tarsus, and Cappadocia. Others came from Italy and the Hellenized parts of the Roman Empire. The excavations suggest they first lived in isolated enclaves attached to Roman legion camps and intermarried with other similar oriental families within the military orders of the region.[67]

Raphael Patai states that later Roman writers remarked that they differed little in either customs, manner of writing, or names from the people among whom they dwelt; and it was especially difficult to differentiate Jews from the Syrians.[69][29] After Pannonia was ceded to the Huns in 433, the garrison populations were withdrawn to Italy, and only a few, enigmatic traces remain of a possible Jewish presence in the area some centuries later.[70] No evidence has yet been found of a Jewish presence in antiquity in Germany beyond its Roman border, nor in Eastern Europe. In Gaul and Germany itself, with the possible exception of Trier and Cologne, the archeological evidence suggests at most a fleeting presence of very few Jews, primarily itinerant traders or artisans.[71]

Estimating the number of Jews in antiquity is a task fraught with peril due to the nature of and lack of accurate documentation. The number of Jews in the Roman Empire for a long time was based on the accounts of Syrian Orthodox bishop

proselytising.[76] The idea of ancient Jews trying to convert Gentiles to Judaism is nowadays rejected by several scholars.[77] The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of the land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The revolts in and suppression of diaspora communities in Egypt, Libya and Crete during the Kitos War
of 115–117 CE had a severe impact on the Jewish diaspora.

A substantial Jewish population emerged in northern Gaul by the Middle Ages,

Merovingian
kingdom in 629. Jews in former Roman territories faced new challenges as harsher anti-Jewish Church rulings were enforced.

Early Middle Ages

better source needed
]

High and Late Middle Ages migrations

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

Historical records show evidence of Jewish communities north of the

Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror likewise extended a welcome to continental Jews to take up residence there. Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann called on the Jews of Mainz to relocate to Speyer. In all of these decisions, the idea that Jews had the know-how and capacity to jump-start the economy, improve revenues, and enlarge trade seems to have played a prominent role.[87] Typically, Jews relocated close to the markets and churches in town centres, where, though they came under the authority of both royal and ecclesiastical powers, they were accorded administrative autonomy.[87]

In the 11th century, both Rabbinic Judaism and the culture of the Babylonian Talmud that underlies it became established in southern Italy and then spread north to Ashkenaz.[88]

Numerous massacres of Jews occurred throughout Europe during the Christian

better source needed] Expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), and parts of Germany (15th century), gradually pushed Ashkenazi Jewry eastward, to Poland (10th century), Lithuania (10th century), and Russia (12th century). Over this period of several hundred years, some have suggested, Jewish economic activity was focused on trade, business management, and financial services, due to several presumed factors: Christian European prohibitions restricting certain activities by Jews, preventing certain financial activities (such as "usurious" loans)[90][page needed
] between Christians, high rates of literacy, near-universal male education, and ability of merchants to rely upon and trust family members living in different regions and countries.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at its greatest extent

In Poland, Jews were granted special protection by the

Holocaust
.

The answer to why there was so little assimilation of Jews in central and eastern Europe for so long would seem to lie in part in the probability that the alien surroundings in central and eastern Europe were not conducive, though there was some assimilation. Furthermore, Jews lived almost exclusively in shtetls, maintained a strong system of education for males, heeded rabbinic leadership, and had a very different lifestyle to that of their neighbours; all of these tendencies increased with every outbreak of antisemitism.[92]

In parts of Eastern Europe, before the arrival of the Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe, some non-Ashkenazi Jews were present who spoke

Leshon Knaan and held various other Non-Ashkenazi traditions and customs.[93] In 1966, the historian Cecil Roth questioned the inclusion of all Yiddish speaking Jews as Ashkenazim in descent, suggesting that upon the arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe to Eastern Europe, from the Middle Ages to the 16th century, there were a substantial number of non-Ashkenazim Jews already there who later abandoned their original Eastern European Jewish culture in favor of the Ashkenazi one.[94] However, according to more recent research, mass migrations of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews occurred to Eastern Europe, from Central Europe in the west, who due to high birth rates absorbed and largely replaced the preceding non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups of Eastern Europe (whose numbers the demographer Sergio Della Pergola considers to have been small).[95] Genetic evidence also indicates that Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews largely descend from Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from central to eastern Europe and subsequently experienced high birthrates and genetic isolation.[96]

Some Jewish immigration from southern Europe to Eastern Europe continued into the early modern period. During the 16th century, as conditions for Italian Jews worsened, many Jews from Venice and the surrounding area migrated to Poland and Lithuania. During the 16th and 17th centuries, some

Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews from throughout the Ottoman Empire migrated to Eastern Europe, as did Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews and Persian Jews.[97][98][99][100]

Medieval references

Jews from Worms (Germany) wearing the mandatory yellow badge.

In the first half of the 11th century,

Mahzor Vitry, the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of the synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances.[103]

In the literature of the 13th century, references to the land and the language of Ashkenaz often occur. Examples include

Solomon ben Aderet's Responsa (vol. i., No. 395); the Responsa of Asher ben Jehiel (pp. 4, 6); his Halakot (Berakot i. 12, ed. Wilna, p. 10); the work of his son Jacob ben Asher
, Tur Orach Chayim (chapter 59); the Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet (numbers 193, 268, 270).

In the Midrash compilation, Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Berechiah mentions Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah as German tribes or as German lands. It may correspond to a Greek word that may have existed in the Greek dialect of the Jews in Syria Palaestina, or the text is corrupted from "Germanica". This view of Berechiah is based on the Talmud (Yoma 10a; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 71b), where Gomer, the father of Ashkenaz, is translated by Germamia, which evidently stands for Germany, and which was suggested by the similarity of the sound.

In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern and western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany and Poland. Thus the prayer-book of

piyyutim according to the Minhag
of Ashkenaz and Poland.

According to 16th-century mystic

Rabbi Elijah of Chelm, Ashkenazi Jews lived in Jerusalem during the 11th century. The story is told that a German-speaking Jew saved the life of a young German man surnamed Dolberger. So when the knights of the First Crusade came to siege Jerusalem, one of Dolberger's family members who was among them rescued Jews in Palestine and carried them back to Worms to repay the favor.[104] Further evidence of German communities in the holy city comes in the form of halakhic questions sent from Germany to Jerusalem during the second half of the 11th century.[105]

Modern history

Material relating to the history of German Jews has been preserved in the communal accounts of certain communities on the Rhine, a Memorbuch, and a Liebesbrief, documents that are now part of the Sassoon Collection.[106] Heinrich Graetz also added to the history of German Jewry in modern times in the abstract of his seminal work, History of the Jews, which he entitled "Volksthümliche Geschichte der Juden."

In an essay on Sephardi Jewry,

Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs[107] summarized the demographic history of Ashkenazi Jews in the last thousand years. He noted that at the end of the 11th century, 97% of world Jewry was Sephardic and 3% Ashkenazi; in the mid-17th century, "Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two"; by the end of the 18th century, "Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe versus the Ottoman Muslim world."[107] By 1930, Arthur Ruppin estimated that Ashkenazi Jews accounted for nearly 92% of world Jewry.[17]
These factors are sheer demography showing the migration patterns of Jews from Southern and Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe.

In 1740, a family from Lithuania became the first Ashkenazi Jews to settle in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.[108]

In the generations after emigration from the west, Jewish communities in places like Poland, Russia, and Belarus enjoyed a comparatively stable socio-political environment. A thriving publishing industry and the printing of hundreds of biblical commentaries precipitated the development of the

American Jewish community since 1750.[91]

In the context of the European

patronymics). Newfound inclusion into public life led to cultural growth in the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, with its goal of integrating modern European values into Jewish life.[110] As a reaction to increasing antisemitism and assimilation following the emancipation, Zionism developed in central Europe.[111] Other Jews, particularly those in the Pale of Settlement, turned to socialism. These tendencies would be united in Labor Zionism
, the founding ideology of the State of Israel.

The Holocaust

Main article: The Holocaust

Of the estimated 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of

previous decades, as the vast majority of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, around 5 million, were Yiddish speakers.[113] Many of the surviving Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to countries such as Israel, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and the United States after the war.[114]

Following the Holocaust, some sources place Ashkenazim today as making up approximately 83%–85% of Jews worldwide,

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, implies that Ashkenazi make up a notably lower figure, less than 74%.[21] Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide.[22]

Israel

Main article: Ashkenazi Jews in Israel

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.[119]

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 that 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.[120]

Ashkenazi Jews have played a prominent role in the economy, media, and politics[121] of Israel since its founding. During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict occurred between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim). The roots of this conflict, which still exists to a much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, are chiefly attributed to the concept of the "melting pot".[122] That is to say, all Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel were strongly encouraged to "meltdown" their own particular exilic identities[123] within the general social "pot" in order to become Israeli.[124]

United States of America

Main article: American Jews

As of 2020, 63% of American Jews are Ashkenazim. A disproportionate amount of Ashkenazi Americans are religious compared to American Jews of other racial groups.[125] They live in large populations in the states of New York, California, Florida, and New Jersey.[126][127] The majority of American Ashkenazi Jewish voters vote for the Democratic Party, although Orthodox ones tend to support the Republican Party, while Conservative, Reform, and non denominational ones tend to support the Democratic Party.[128]

Definition

See also: Who is a Jew?

By religion

Religious Jews have

better source needed
]

In a religious sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is any Jew whose family tradition and ritual follow Ashkenazi practice. Until the Ashkenazi community first began to develop in the

better source needed
]

In this respect, the counterpart of Ashkenazi is

Sephardi or Mizrahi man is expected to take on Sephardic practice and the children inherit a Sephardic identity, though in practice many families compromise. A convert generally follows the practice of the beth din that converted him or her. With the integration of Jews from around the world in Israel, North America, and other places, the religious definition of an Ashkenazi Jew is blurring, especially outside Orthodox Judaism.[131]

New developments in Judaism often transcend differences in religious practice between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. In North American cities, social trends such as the

Haredi communities, the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew has also drastically declined in favor of the Sephardi-based pronunciation of Modern Hebrew
.

By culture

Culturally, an Ashkenazi Jew can be identified by the concept of

Hasidism
, but a broad range of movements, ideologies, practices, and traditions in which Ashkenazi Jews have participated and somehow retained a sense of Jewishness. Although a far smaller number of Jews still speak Yiddish, Yiddishkeit can be identified in manners of speech, in styles of humor, in patterns of association. Broadly speaking, a Jew is one who associates culturally with Jews, supports Jewish institutions, reads Jewish books and periodicals, attends Jewish movies and theater, travels to Israel, visits historical synagogues, and so forth. It is a definition that applies to Jewish culture in general, and to Ashkenazi Yiddishkeit in particular.

As Ashkenazi Jews moved away from Europe, mostly in the form of

Hareidi
groups continue to use Yiddish in daily life. (There are numerous Ashkenazi Jewish anglophones and Russian-speakers as well, although English and Russian are not originally Jewish languages.)

France's blended Jewish community is typical of the cultural recombination that is going on among Jews throughout the world. Although France expelled its original Jewish population in the

better source needed
]

But after emancipation, a sense of a unified French Jewry emerged, especially when France was wracked by the

francophone
.

Ashkenazi Jews did not record their traditions or achievements by text, instead these traditions were passed down orally from one generation to the next.

Galut traditions, which were more sorrowful in practice.[139]

Then, in the 1990s, yet another Ashkenazi Jewish wave began to arrive from countries of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe. The result is a pluralistic Jewish community that still has some distinct elements of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic culture. But in France, it is becoming much more difficult to sort out the two, and a distinctly French Jewishness has emerged.[140]

By ethnicity

In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is one whose ancestry can be traced to the Jews who settled in Central 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 argued that genetic variations have been identified that show high frequencies among Ashkenazi Jews, but not in the general European population, be they for patrilineal markers (

Y-chromosome haplotypes) and for matrilineal markers (mitotypes).[141] Since the middle of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities and non-Jews.[142]

Customs, laws and traditions

The example of the chevra kadisha, the Jewish burial society, Prague, 1772

The

Shulkhan Arukh itself, in the gloss of Moses Isserles
. Well known differences in practice include:

Ashkenazic liturgy

The term Ashkenazi also refers to the nusach Ashkenaz (Hebrew, "liturgical tradition", or rite) used by Ashkenazi Jews in their Siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition's choice of prayers, the order of prayers, the text of prayers, and melodies used in the singing of prayers. Two other major forms of nusach among Ashkenazic Jews are Nusach Sefard (not to be confused with the Sephardic ritual), which is the general Polish Hasidic nusach, and Nusach Ari, as used by Lubavitch Hasidim.

Relations with Sephardim

Further information: Racism in Israel § Intra-Jewish racism: Racism between Jews

Relations between Ashkenazim and Sephardim have at times been tense and clouded by arrogance, snobbery and claims of racial superiority with both sides claiming the inferiority of the other, based upon such features as physical traits and culture.[144][145][146][147][148]

North African Sephardim and Berber Jews were often looked down upon by Ashkenazim as second-class citizens during the first decade after the creation of Israel. This has led to protest movements such as the Israeli Black Panthers led by Saadia Marciano, a Moroccan Jew. Research in 2010 revealed a genetic common ancestry of all Jewish populations.[149] In some instances, Ashkenazi communities have accepted significant numbers of Sephardi newcomers, sometimes resulting in intermarriage and the possible merging between the two communities.[150]

Notable Ashkenazim

See also:
List of Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews have a notable history of achievement in Western societies[151] in the fields of natural and social sciences, mathematics, literature, finance, politics, media, and others. In those societies where they have been free to enter any profession, they have a record of high occupational achievement, entering professions and fields of commerce where higher education is required.[152] Though Ashkenazi Jews have never exceeded 3% of the American population, Jews account for 37% of the winners of the U.S. National Medal of Science, 25% of the American Nobel Prize winners in literature, 40% of the American Nobel Prize winners in science and economics .[153]

Genetics

Main article:
Genetic studies on Jews

Genetic origins

Efforts to identify the origins of Ashkenazi Jews through DNA analysis began in the 1990s. There are three types of genetic origin testing, autosomal DNA (atDNA),

Y-DNA). Autosomal DNA is a mixture from an individual's entire ancestry. Y-DNA shows a male's lineage along his paternal line. mtDNA shows any person's lineage only along their maternal line. Genome-wide association studies
have also been used for genetic origin testing.

Like most DNA studies of human migration patterns, the earliest studies on Ashkenazi Jews focused on the Y-DNA and mtDNA segments of the human genome. Both segments are unaffected by

recombination (except for the ends of the Y chromosome – the pseudoautosomal regions
known as PAR1 and PAR2), thus allowing tracing of direct maternal and paternal lineages.

These studies revealed that Ashkenazi Jews originate from an ancient (2000–700 BCE) population of the Middle East who spread to Europe.[154] Ashkenazic Jews display the homogeneity of a genetic bottleneck, meaning they descend from a larger population whose numbers were greatly reduced but recovered through a few founding individuals. Although the Jewish people, in general, were present across a wide geographical area as described, genetic research by Gil Atzmon of the Longevity Genes Project at Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggests "that Ashkenazim branched off from other Jews around the time of the destruction of the First Temple, 2,500 years ago ... flourished during the Roman Empire but then went through a 'severe bottleneck' as they dispersed, reducing a population of several million to just 400 families who left Northern Italy around the year 1000 for Central and eventually Eastern Europe."[155]

Various studies have drawn diverging conclusions about the degree and sources of the non-Levantine admixture in Ashkenazim,[23] particularly the extent of the non-Levantine origin in maternal lineages, which is in contrast to the predominant Levantine genetic origin in paternal lineages. But all studies agree that both lineages have genetic overlap with the Fertile Crescent, albeit at differing rates. Collectively, Ashkenazi Jews are less genetically diverse than other Jewish ethnic divisions, due to their genetic bottleneck.[156]

Male lineages: Y-chromosomal DNA

Most genetic studies of Ashkenazi Jews conclude that the male lines were from the Middle East.[157][158][159]

A 2000 study by Hammer et al.[160] found that the Y-chromosome of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews contained mutations that are also common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon among indigenous Europeans. This suggests that Ashkenazim male ancestors are mostly from the Middle East. Ashkenazi had less than 0.5% male genetic admixture per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with "relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim," and the total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%". This supported the finding that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." "Past research found that 50%–80% of DNA from the Ashkenazi Y chromosome, which is used to trace the male lineage, originated in the Near East," Richards said. The population has subsequently spread out.

A 2001 study by Nebel et al. showed that Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews share overall Near Eastern paternal ancestries. In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent. The study also found Eu 19 (

Levites where the proportion reaches 50%, found a "rich variation of haplogroup R1a outside of Europe which is phylogenetically separate from the typically European R1a branches", and concludes that the particular R1a-Y2619 sub-clade is evidence for a local origin, and that this validates the "Middle Eastern origin of the Ashkenazi Levite lineage" which had previously been concluded based on a few samples.[163]

Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA

Until recently, geneticists largely attributed the ethnogenesis of most of the world's Jewish populations, including Ashkenazim, to "women from each local population" whom the Jewish men "took as wives and converted to Judaism". Thus, in 2002, in line with this theory, David Goldstein reported that unlike Ashkenazi male lineages, female lineages "did not seem to be Middle Eastern", and that each community had its own genetic pattern and even that "in some cases the mitochondrial DNA was closely related to that of the host community." This suggested "that Jewish men had arrived from the Middle East, taken wives from the host population and converted them to Judaism, after which there was no further intermarriage with non-Jews."[141]

A 2006 study by Behar et al.,[24] of 1,000 units of haplogroup K (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of today's Ashkenazim descend from just four women who were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Middle East in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. The rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA reportedly originated from about 150 women, most of whom were also likely of Middle Eastern origin.[24] Specifically, although haplogroup K is common throughout western Eurasia, its global distribution makes it very unlikely that "the four aforementioned founder lineages entered the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool via gene flow from a European host population".

A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by a team led by Martin B. Richards agreed with the older hypothesis of the origin. It tested all 16,600 DNA units of mtDNA, and found that the four main female Ashkenazi founders had descent lines that were established in Europe 10,000 to 20,000 years in the past[164] while most of the remaining minor founders also have a deep European ancestry. The study argued that the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Near East or the Caucasus, but instead assimilated within Europe, primarily of Italian and Old French origins.[165] The study estimated that more than 80% of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to (mainly prehistoric Western) Europe, and only 8% from the Near East, while the origin of the remainder is undetermined.[166][164] According to the study this "point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities."[166][167][168][169][170] Karl Skorecki criticized the study, arguing that while it "re-opened the question of the maternal origins of Ashkenazi Jewry, the phylogenetic analysis in the manuscript does not 'settle' the question."[171]

A 2014 study by Fernández et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews display a frequency of haplogroup K in their maternal DNA, suggesting an ancient Near Eastern matrilineal origin, similar to the results of the Behar study in 2006. Fernández noted that this observation clearly contradicts the results of the 2013 study led by Richards that suggested a European source for 3 exclusively Ashkenazi K lineages.[25]

Association and linkage studies (autosomal DNA)

In genetic epidemiology, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS) is an examination of all or most of the genes (the genome) of different individuals of a particular species to see how much the genes vary from individual to individual. These techniques were originally designed for epidemiological uses, to identify genetic associations with observable traits.[172]

A 2006 study by Seldin et al. used over 5,000 autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure. The results showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90%, while most southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85%. Both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the "southern" group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".[173]

A 2007 study by Bauchet et al. found that Ashkenazim were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations than with the global population, and in the European structure analysis, they share similarities only with Greeks and Southern Italians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.[174][175]

A 2010 study of Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer et al. identified two major groups: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews, by using "principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis". "The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry", as the two groups share ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. The study examines genetic markers spread across the entire genome and finds that the Jewish groups (Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi) share large swaths of DNA, indicating close relationships, and that each studied Jewish group (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek and Ashkenazi) has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to their fellow non-Jewish countrymen.[176] Atzmon's team found that the SNP markers in genetic segments of 3 million DNA letters or longer were 10 times more likely to be identical among Jews than non-Jews. Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. The study also found that with respect to non-Jewish European groups, the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that this similarity may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in during the Roman Empire. It was also found that any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins.[177][178]

A 2010 study by Bray et al., using

Sardinians, Italians and Tuscans. The study also observed that Ashkenazim are more diverse than their Middle Eastern relatives, which was counterintuitive because Ashkenazim are supposed to be a subset, not a superset, of their assumed geographical source population. Bray et al. therefore suggest that these results reflect a history of mixing between genetically distinct populations in Europe. However, it is possible that Ashkenazim's high heterozygocity was due to a relaxation of marriage prescription in their ancestors, while the low heterozygocity in te Middle East is due to maintenance of FBD marriage there. Therefore, Ashkenazim distinctiveness as found in the Bray et al. study may come from their ethnic endogamy (ethnic inbreeding), which allowed them to "mine" their ancestral gene pool in the context of relative reproductive isolation from European neighbors, and not from clan endogamy (clan inbreeding). Consequently, their higher diversity compared to Middle Easterners stems from the latter's marriage practices, not necessarily from the former's admixture with Europeans.[181]

A 2010 genome-wide genetic study by Behar et al. examined the genetic relationships among all major Jewish groups, including Ashkenazim, and their genetic relationship with non-Jewish ethnic populations. It found that today's Jews (except Indian and Ethiopian Jews) are closely related to people from the

Israelite residents of the Levant".[182]

A 2013 study by Behar et al. found evidence among Ashkenazim of mixed European and Levantine origins. The authors found Ashkenazi had the greatest affinity and shared ancestry firstly with other Jewish groups from southern Europe, Syria, and North Africa, and secondly with both southern Europeans (such as Italians) and modern Levantines (such as the Druze, Cypriots, Lebanese and Samaritans). The study found no affinity of Ashkenazim to northern Caucasus populations, and no more affinity to modern south Caucasus and eastern Anatolian populations (such as Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, and Turks) than found in other Jews or non-Jewish Middle Easterners (such as the Kurds, Iranians, Druze and Lebanese).[183]

A 2017 autosomal study by Xue, Shai Carmi et al. found an admixture of Middle-Eastern and European ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews: with the European component comprising ≈50%–70% (estimated at "possibly 60%") and largely being of a southern European source and a minority eastern European, and the remainder (estimated at possibly ≈40%) being Middle Eastern ancestry showing the strongest affinity to Levantine populations such as the Druze and Lebanese.[26]

A 2018 study, referencing the popular theory of Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) origins in "an initial settlement in Western Europe (Northern France and Germany), followed by migration to Poland and an expansion there and in the rest of Eastern Europe", tested "whether Ashkenazi Jews with recent origins in Eastern Europe are genetically distinct from Western European Ashkenazi". The study concluded that "Western AJ consist of two slightly distinct groups: one that descends from a subset of the original founders [who remained in Western Europe], and another that migrated there back from Eastern Europe, possibly after absorbing a limited degree of gene flow".[184]

A 2022 study of genome data from the medieval Jewish cemetery of Erfurt found at least two related but genetically distinct Jewish groups: one closely related to Middle Eastern populations and especially similar to modern Ashkenazi Jews from France and Germany and modern Sephardic Jews from Turkey; the other group had a substantial contribution from Eastern European populations. But today Ashkenazi Jews from eastern Europe no longer exhibit this genetic variability, and instead, their genomes resemble a nearly even mixture of the two Erfurt groups (with about 60% from the first group and 40% from the second).[27]

The Khazar hypothesis

Main article: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry

In the late 19th century, it was proposed that the core of Ashkenazi Jews were genetically descended from a hypothetical Khazarian Jewish diaspora who had migrated westward from modern Russia and Ukraine into modern France and Germany (as opposed to the currently held theory that Jews migrated from France and Germany into Eastern Europe). The hypothesis is not corroborated by historical sources,[185] and is unsubstantiated by genetics,[183] but it is still occasionally supported by scholars who have had some success in keeping the theory in the academic consciousness.[186][187]

The theory has sometimes been used by Jewish authors such as Arthur Koestler as part of an argument against traditional forms of antisemitism (for example the claim that "the Jews killed Christ"), just as similar arguments have been advanced on behalf of the Crimean Karaites. Today, however, the theory is more often associated with antisemitism[188] and anti-Zionism.[189]

A 2013 trans-genome study carried out by 30 geneticists, from 13 universities and academies, from nine countries, assembling the largest data set available to date, for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins found no evidence of Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews. The authors concluded:

Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region.

The authors found no affinity in Ashkenazim with north Caucasus populations, as well as no greater affinity in Ashkenazim to south Caucasus or Anatolian populations than that found in non-Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jewish Middle Easterners (such as the Kurds, Iranians, Druze and Lebanese). The greatest affinity and shared ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews were found to be (after those with other Jewish groups from southern Europe, Syria, and North Africa) with both southern Europeans and Levantines such as Druze, Cypriot, Lebanese and Samaritan groups.[183]

East Asian ancestry

In addition to the genetic contributions from neighboring Europeans, Near Easterners and North Africans, Ashkenazi Jews share some East Eurasian haplogroups, such as N9a, A, and M33c, with Chinese populations. This originates from their economic and cultural exchanges along the Silk Road.[190]

Medical genetics

Main article: Medical genetics of Jews

There are many references to Ashkenazi Jews in the literature of medical and population genetics. Indeed, much awareness of "Ashkenazi Jews" as an ethnic group or category stems from the large number of genetic studies of disease, including many that are well reported in the media, that have been conducted among Jews. Jewish populations have been studied more thoroughly than most other human populations, for a variety of reasons:

  • Jewish populations, and particularly the large Ashkenazi Jewish population, are ideal for such research studies, because they exhibit a high degree of endogamy, yet they are sizable.[191]
  • Jewish communities are comparatively well informed about genetics research, and have been supportive of community efforts to study and prevent genetic diseases.[191]

The result is a form of

ascertainment bias. This has sometimes created an impression that Jews are more susceptible to genetic disease than other populations.[191] Healthcare professionals are often taught to consider those of Ashkenazi descent to be at increased risk for colon cancer.[192] People of Ashkenazi descent are at much higher risk of being a carrier for Tay–Sachs disease, which is fatal in its homozygous form.[193]

homozygosity for the genes that cause related diseases.[194][195]

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ /ˌɑːʃkəˈnɑːzɪm, ˌæʃ-/ AHSH-kə-NAH-zim, ASH-;[6] Hebrew: אַשְׁכְּנַזִּים, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: [ˌaʃkəˈnazim], singular: [ˌaʃkəˈnazi], Modern Hebrew: [(ʔ)aʃkenaˈzim, (ʔ)aʃkenaˈzi][7]

References

Citations

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Sources

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