Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews (/ˌɑːʃkəˈnɑːzi, ˌæʃ-/ A(H)SH-kə-NAH-zee;[6] Hebrew: יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, romanized: Yehudei Ashkenaz, lit. 'Jews of Germania'; Yiddish: אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, 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.
יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז (Yehudei Ashkenaz)
אשכנזישע יידן (Ashkenazishe Yidn)
אשכנזישע יידן (Ashkenazishe Yidn)
5–6 million[3]
194,000–500,000; according to the FJCR, up to 1 million of Jewish descent
300,000
260,000
240,000
200,000
200,000
150,000
120,000
80,000
80,000
80,000
75,000
70,000
30,000
30,000
30,000
28,000
25,000
18,500
18,000
10,000
10,000
9,000
7,000
5,000
4,900
4,300
4,000
3,000
3,000
2,500
1,000
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 Europe's philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, 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 Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Japhet, son of Noah, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10). The name of Gomer has often been linked to the Cimmerians.
The Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from Assyrian Aškūza (cuneiform Aškuzai/Iškuzai), a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates;[28] the name Aškūza is identified with the Scythians.[29][30] The intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a vav ו with a nun נ.[30][31][32]
In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in the far north, the others being 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 Yovhannes Drasxanakertc'i (1.15), Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia,[35] as it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene, Khazaria, Crimea and areas to the east.[36] His contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with the Saquliba or Slavic territories,[37] and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe.[36] In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical "Ashkenaz" with Khazaria.[38]
Sometime in the Early Medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term.[32] Conforming to the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was denominated Sefarad (Obadiah 20), France was called Tsarefat (1 Kings 17:9), and Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan.[39] By the high medieval period, Talmudic commentators like Rashi began to use Ashkenaz/Eretz Ashkenaz to designate 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]