What and who are the Ashkenazi Jews?

Ashkenazi Jew – is a nickname for a Jew from Eastern Europe. Originally Ashkenaz is the country known to us as Germany or the region between Germany and France. Ashkenazi Jews are usually compared to Sephardic Jews, because these are the largest Jewish communities, and they differ in their customs, style of prayers, and more. Some call Ashkenazi Jews The European Jew or European Jews,  although the Jews of Spain also originated in Spain which is also in Europe, however after the deportation from Spain they split mainly into Islamic countries.

One of the well-known customs of Ashkenazi Jews is that they do not eat legumes on Passover, unlike the Jews of Spain, for fear of chametz. The unique characteristic of Ashkenazi Jews is a prayer book called the Ashkenazi version which is different from the Sephardic version. Ashkenazi Jews are also more halakhically strict than Sephardic Jews, because,  along with the halachic compilation “Shulchan Aruch”, which is known in all Israeli communities, Ashkenazis have an additional halakhic compilation “by mouth” added. 

The difference in prayer is also in pronunciation. Unlike the Spanish pronunciation, Ashkenazis usually accentuate the penultimate syllable – penultimate accent – unlike the Sephardim, who usually accentuate the last syllable – ultima accent. The Ashkenazim also pronounce Hebrew punctuations in a different way to Ashkenazim. For example, “Kametz” is pronounced as A by the Sephardim, while in the case of the Ashkenazim it is pronounced O. The Ashkenazim, unlike the Sephardim, also pronounce unstressed letters and the letter t is pronounced that instead of t as in the Sephardic pronunciation. The language associated with Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish.

The ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jew – Jewish ancestry

One of the questions that arise in both research and the public is whether the Ashkenazi Jew has common ancestors with the rest of the Jews or whether it is a community that has converted to Judaism and therefore may also look different. 

Rabbi Yehuda Halevi wrote in 1139 a book of Jewish thought called the “Book of the Khazars”, in which he describes the king of the Khazars who listens to the arguments of the heads of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions. In the end, he is convinced by the Jew and decides to convert and with him the whole kingdom. Some have argued that the Ashkenazim are descended from the Khazars and that there is no genetic link between them and the Jews. Today most researchers do not accept this theory.

The more common theory today is that Ashkenazis of today are from a Jewish community that lived on the Rhine River in Germany from the ninth and tenth centuries. One explanation due to genetic studies is that a small genetic group, mixing of European descent with a Mediterranean origin, actually took over the Ashkenazi region thanks to multiple births and low mortality. According to another belief, the origin of the ancestral mothers is European and the origin of the ancestral father is the Mediterranean, meaning many women converted to Judaism and married Jews of Mediterranean descent. Many studies today support this hypothesis that the Ashkenazi origin is the Middle East combined with a Southern European one.

Ashkenazi Jewish diseases

Due to the genetic differences, the Ashkenazi Jew is prone to diseases that are uncommon among other Jewish communities, although other communities may not have been sufficiently researched. Since the Ashkenazi communities were more closed and lived in the ghettos, certain mutations of diseases were preserved among them, while the Sephardim became more involved in the peoples of the region and their diseases were more related to diseases known in the countries of origin. Therefore, in Israel, Ashkenazi couples are advised to perform more genetic tests before pregnancy.

Here are just a few of the Ashkenazi diseases:

T. Zacks – One in thirty Ashkenazi Jews bear this gene. The disease is a deadly and severe one that affects an essential enzyme and causes severe damage to the nervous system, the nerve cells, and the spinal cord

Kenwan disease – a disease that one in every Ashkenazi Jew will carry a mutation of. It is a disease that causes mental retardation, blindness, and premature mortality. It can be identified at two to three months of age.

Family dysautonomia – One in 30 Ashkenazis will carry the gene for this disease. Only fifty percent of them will reach the age of thirty. It is a disease that affects nerve cells. Those who suffer from it hardly feel pain and therefore many of its patients often injure themselves.