Jewish ethnic divisions refers to a number of distinct communities within the world's ethnically
Jewish populationJewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" is a source of controversy.-Total population:...
. Although considered one single
self-identifyingCultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
ethnicity, there are distinct ethnic divisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating
IsraeliteAccording to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
population, and subsequent independent evolutions.
As long ago as
Biblical timesThe Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
, cultural and linguistic differences between Jewish communities, even within the area of Ancient Israel and
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
, are observed both within the Bible itself as well as from archeological remains. In more recent human history, an array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the
Old WorldThe Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....
, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the
Jewish diasporaThe Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments;
politicalPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
,
culturalCulture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
,
naturalNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and
populationA population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
al. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including
Jewish linguistic diversityJewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities around the world.Although Hebrew was the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries, by the fifth century BCE, the closely related Aramaic joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea and by the third...
, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.
Ancient Israel and Judah
The full extent of the cultural, linguistic, religious or other differences among the Israelites in antiquity is unknown. Following the defeat of the Kingdom of Israel in the 720s BCE and the
Kingdom of JudahThe Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
in 586 BCE, the Jewish people became dispersed throughout much of the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, especially in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
to the west, as well as in
YemenThe Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
to the south, and in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
to the east. The Jewish population in Palestine was severely reduced by the
Jewish-Roman WarsThe Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Iudaea Province and Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire. Some sources use the term to refer only to the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba revolt...
and by the later hostile policies of the
Christian emperorsThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, against non-
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s, but the Jews always retained a presence in
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. During this period, Paul Johnson writes: "Wherever towns survived, or urban communities sprang up, Jews would sooner or later establish themselves. The near-destruction of Palestinian Jewry in the second century turned the survivors of Jewish rural communities into marginal town-dwellers. After the Arab conquest in the seventh century, the large Jewish agricultural communities in Babylonia were progressively wrecked by high taxation, so that there too the Jews drifted into towns and became craftsmen, tradesmen, and dealers. Everywhere these urban Jews, the vast majority literate and numerate, managed to settle, unless penal laws or physical violence made it impossible."
In the early-Byzantine 6th century, there were 43 Jewish communities in Palestine.
During the
Islamic periodDuring the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
and the intervening
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, there were 50 communities which included
Jerusalem,
Tiberias,
RamlehRamla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
,
AshkelonAshkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...
, Caesarea, and
GazaGaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
.
During the early Ottoman Period of the 14th century there were 30 communities which included
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
,
ShechemNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
,
HebronHebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, Ramleh,
JaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many in the north. The most dominant location became
SafedSafed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
which reached a population of 30,000 Jews by end of the 16th century, after the
expulsionThe Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
of Sephardim from Iberia, a century earlier. Johnson notes that in the Arab-Muslim territories, which included most of Spain, all of North Africa, and the Near East south of Anatolia in the Middle Ages, the Jewish condition was easier as a rule, than it was in Europe.
Over the centuries following the
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, Jews from around the world began emigrating in increasing numbers. Upon arrival, these Jews adopted the customs of the
{{Jews and Judaism sidebar|ethnicities}}
Jewish ethnic divisions refers to a number of distinct communities within the world's ethnically
Jewish populationJewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" is a source of controversy.-Total population:...
. Although considered one single
self-identifyingCultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
ethnicity, there are distinct ethnic divisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating
IsraeliteAccording to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
population, and subsequent independent evolutions.
As long ago as
Biblical timesThe Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
, cultural and linguistic differences between Jewish communities, even within the area of Ancient Israel and
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
, are observed both within the Bible itself as well as from archeological remains. In more recent human history, an array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the
Old WorldThe Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....
, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the
Jewish diasporaThe Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments;
politicalPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
,
culturalCulture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
,
naturalNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and
populationA population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
al. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including
Jewish linguistic diversityJewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities around the world.Although Hebrew was the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries, by the fifth century BCE, the closely related Aramaic joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea and by the third...
, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.
Ancient Israel and Judah
{{Main|History of Ancient Israel and Judah}}
The full extent of the cultural, linguistic, religious or other differences among the Israelites in antiquity is unknown. Following the defeat of the Kingdom of Israel in the 720s BCE and the
Kingdom of JudahThe Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
in 586 BCE, the Jewish people became dispersed throughout much of the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, especially in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
to the west, as well as in
YemenThe Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
to the south, and in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
to the east. The Jewish population in Palestine was severely reduced by the
Jewish-Roman WarsThe Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Iudaea Province and Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire. Some sources use the term to refer only to the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba revolt...
and by the later hostile policies of the
Christian emperorsThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, against non-
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s, but the Jews always retained a presence in
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. During this period, Paul Johnson writes: "Wherever towns survived, or urban communities sprang up, Jews would sooner or later establish themselves. The near-destruction of Palestinian Jewry in the second century turned the survivors of Jewish rural communities into marginal town-dwellers. After the Arab conquest in the seventh century, the large Jewish agricultural communities in Babylonia were progressively wrecked by high taxation, so that there too the Jews drifted into towns and became craftsmen, tradesmen, and dealers. Everywhere these urban Jews, the vast majority literate and numerate, managed to settle, unless penal laws or physical violence made it impossible."
In the early-Byzantine 6th century, there were 43 Jewish communities in Palestine.
During the
Islamic periodDuring the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
and the intervening
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, there were 50 communities which included
Jerusalem,
Tiberias,
RamlehRamla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
,
AshkelonAshkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...
, Caesarea, and
GazaGaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
.
During the early Ottoman Period of the 14th century there were 30 communities which included
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
,
ShechemNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
,
HebronHebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, Ramleh,
JaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many in the north. The most dominant location became
SafedSafed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
which reached a population of 30,000 Jews by end of the 16th century, after the
expulsionThe Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
of Sephardim from Iberia, a century earlier. Johnson notes that in the Arab-Muslim territories, which included most of Spain, all of North Africa, and the Near East south of Anatolia in the Middle Ages, the Jewish condition was easier as a rule, than it was in Europe.
Over the centuries following the
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, Jews from around the world began emigrating in increasing numbers. Upon arrival, these Jews adopted the customs of the
{{Jews and Judaism sidebar|ethnicities}}
Jewish ethnic divisions refers to a number of distinct communities within the world's ethnically
Jewish populationJewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" is a source of controversy.-Total population:...
. Although considered one single
self-identifyingCultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
ethnicity, there are distinct ethnic divisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating
IsraeliteAccording to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
population, and subsequent independent evolutions.
As long ago as
Biblical timesThe Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
, cultural and linguistic differences between Jewish communities, even within the area of Ancient Israel and
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
, are observed both within the Bible itself as well as from archeological remains. In more recent human history, an array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the
Old WorldThe Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....
, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the
Jewish diasporaThe Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments;
politicalPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
,
culturalCulture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
,
naturalNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and
populationA population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
al. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including
Jewish linguistic diversityJewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities around the world.Although Hebrew was the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries, by the fifth century BCE, the closely related Aramaic joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea and by the third...
, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.
Ancient Israel and Judah
{{Main|History of Ancient Israel and Judah}}
The full extent of the cultural, linguistic, religious or other differences among the Israelites in antiquity is unknown. Following the defeat of the Kingdom of Israel in the 720s BCE and the
Kingdom of JudahThe Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
in 586 BCE, the Jewish people became dispersed throughout much of the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, especially in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
to the west, as well as in
YemenThe Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
to the south, and in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
to the east. The Jewish population in Palestine was severely reduced by the
Jewish-Roman WarsThe Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Iudaea Province and Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire. Some sources use the term to refer only to the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba revolt...
and by the later hostile policies of the
Christian emperorsThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, against non-
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s, but the Jews always retained a presence in
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. During this period, Paul Johnson writes: "Wherever towns survived, or urban communities sprang up, Jews would sooner or later establish themselves. The near-destruction of Palestinian Jewry in the second century turned the survivors of Jewish rural communities into marginal town-dwellers. After the Arab conquest in the seventh century, the large Jewish agricultural communities in Babylonia were progressively wrecked by high taxation, so that there too the Jews drifted into towns and became craftsmen, tradesmen, and dealers. Everywhere these urban Jews, the vast majority literate and numerate, managed to settle, unless penal laws or physical violence made it impossible."
In the early-Byzantine 6th century, there were 43 Jewish communities in Palestine.
During the
Islamic periodDuring the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
and the intervening
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, there were 50 communities which included
Jerusalem,
Tiberias,
RamlehRamla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
,
AshkelonAshkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...
, Caesarea, and
GazaGaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
.
During the early Ottoman Period of the 14th century there were 30 communities which included
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
,
ShechemNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
,
HebronHebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, Ramleh,
JaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many in the north. The most dominant location became
SafedSafed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
which reached a population of 30,000 Jews by end of the 16th century, after the
expulsionThe Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
of Sephardim from Iberia, a century earlier. Johnson notes that in the Arab-Muslim territories, which included most of Spain, all of North Africa, and the Near East south of Anatolia in the Middle Ages, the Jewish condition was easier as a rule, than it was in Europe.
Over the centuries following the
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, Jews from around the world began emigrating in increasing numbers. Upon arrival, these Jews adopted the customs of the {{Unicode and Sephardi communities into which they moved. With Baron von Rothschild's philanthropic land purchases and subsequent efforts to turn Palestine into a verdant Jewish homeland, and the subsequent rise of
ZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, a flood of Ashkenazi immigration brought the Jewish population of the region to several hundred thousand.
Diaspora
Following the loss of their second revolt against the
RomansThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and their
exileThe Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
by them, at the height of the empire in the 2nd century, Jewish communities similarly could be found in nearly every notable center throughout it, as well as scattered communities found in centers beyond the Empire's borders in northern Europe, in eastern
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, in southwestern
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, and in
AfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Farther to the east along trade routes, Jewish communities could be found throughout Persia and in empires even farther east including in
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. In the
Early Middle AgesThe Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
of the 6th to 11th centuries, the Radhanites traded along the overland routes between Europe and Asia earlier established by the Romans, dominated trade between the Christian and the Islamic worlds, and used a trade network that covered most areas of Jewish settlement.
In the middle Byzantine period, the khan of Khazaria in the northern Caucasus and his court converted to Judaism, partly in order to maintain neutrality between Christian Byzantium and the Islamic world. This event forms the framework for
Yehuda HaleviJudah Halevi was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in Palestine in 1141...
's work 'The
KuzariThe Kitab al Khazari, commonly called the Kuzari, is one of most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, completed around 1140. Its title is an Arabic phrase meaning Book of the Khazars...
' (c.1140), but how much these traces of Judaism within this group survived the collapse of the Khazar empire is a matter of scholarly debate.
In western Europe, following the collapse of the
Western Roman EmpireThe Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....
in 476, and especially after the re-orientation of trade caused by the Moorish conquest of Iberia in the early 8th century, communications between the Jewish communities in northern parts of the former western empire became sporadic. At the same time, rule under
IslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, even with
dhimmiA , is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law. Linguistically, the word means "one whose responsibility has been taken". This has to be understood in the context of the definition of state in Islam...
status, resulted in freer trade and communications within the
MuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
world, and the communities in Iberia remained in frequent contact with Jewry in North Africa and the Middle East, but communities further afield, in central and south Asia and central Africa, remained more isolated, and continued to develop their own unique traditions. For the Sephardim in Spain, it resulted in a "Hebrew Golden Age" in the 10th to 12th centuries. The 1492
expulsion from SpainThe Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
by the
Catholic MonarchsThe Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...
however, made the Sephardic Jews hide and disperse to the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and other existing communities in Christian Europe, to within the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, to the
MaghrebThe Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
in North Africa and smaller numbers to other areas of the Middle East, and eventually to the
AmericasThe Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
in the early 17th century.
In northern and Christian Europe during this period, financial competition developed between the authority of the
PopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
in Rome and nascent states and empires. This dynamic, with the
Great SchismThe East–West Schism of 1054, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided the State church of the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively...
, recurrent fervid anti-Christian religious
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, and later
protestationsThe Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
and
warsThe European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe from ca. 1524 to 1648, following the onset of the Protestant Reformation in Western and Northern Europe...
between Christians themselves, caused repeated periods and occurrences of persecution against the established Jewish minority in
"AshkenazIn the Bible, Ashkenaz is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah , thereby a Japhetic descendant of Noah. A kingdom of Ashkenaz is called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon In the Bible, Ashkenaz (Heb. אַשְׁכֲּנָז) is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah (Gen....
"—that is, the areas that are now northern
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
—masses of Jews began to move further to the east. There, they were welcomed by the king of
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and with Lithuania, grew greatly, and relatively flourished to the end of the 18th century. In western Europe, the conditions for Jewry differed between the communities within the various countries and over time, depending on background conditions. With both pull and push factors operating, Ashkenazi emigration to the Americans would increase in the early 18th century with German-speaking Askenazi Jews, and end with a tidal wave between 1880 and the early 20th century with Yiddish-speaking
Ashkenazim, as conditions in the east deteriorated under the failing
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. With the Holocaust and the destruction of most European Jewry, North America would hold the majority of world Jewry.
Modern divisions
Historically, Jews have been identified into two major groups: the
AshkenazimAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
, or "Germanics" ("Ashkenaz" meaning "
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
" in
Medieval HebrewMedieval Hebrew has many features that distinguish it from older forms of Hebrew. These affect grammar, syntax, sentence structure, and also include a wide variety of new lexical items, which are usually based on older forms....
, denoting their
Central EuropeCentral Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an base), and the
SephardimSephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
, or "Hispanics" ("Sefarad" meaning "
HispaniaAnother theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
" or "
IberiaThe Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
" in Hebrew, denoting their
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
base). The far more recent term
MizrahimMizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus...
, or "Easterners" ("Mizrach" being "East" in Hebrew) to include Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitutes a third major group to some, following the partition of Palestine, their often-forced migration, and the re-establishment of their communities in Israel.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}
Smaller Jewish groups include the
Georgian JewsThe Georgian Jews are from the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus...
and
Mountain JewsHighland Jews, Mountain Jews or Kavkazi Jews also known as Juvuro or Juhuro, are Jews of the eastern Caucasus, mainly of Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They are also known as Caucasus Jews, Caucasian Jews, or less commonly East Caucasian Jews, because the majority of these Jews settled the eastern part...
from the Caucasus; Indian Jews including the
Bene IsraelThe Bene Israel are a group of Jews who migrated in the 19th century from villages in the Konkan area to the nearby Indian cities, primarily Mumbai, but also to Pune, and Ahmedabad. Prior to these waves of emigrations and to this day, the Bene Israel formed the largest sector of the subcontinent's...
,
Bnei MenasheThe Bnei Menashe are a group of more than 9,000 people from India's North-Eastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The claim appeared after a Pentecostalist dreamt in 1951 that his people's pre-Christian religion was Judaism and that...
,
Cochin JewsCochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews , are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon, though historically attested migration dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historically, they lived in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the...
and
Bene EphraimThe Bene Ephraim, also called Telugu Jews because they speak Telugu, are a small community of Jews living primarily in Kottareddipalem, a village outside Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, near the delta of the River Krishna....
; the
RomaniotesThe Romaniotes or Romaniots are a Jewish population who have lived in the territory of today's Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations for more than 2,000 years. Their languages were Yevanic, a Greek dialect, and Greek. They derived their name from the old name for the people...
of
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
; the ancient Italian Jewish community; the Teimanim from the
YemenThe Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
and
OmanOman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...
; various African Jews, including most numerously the
Beta IsraelBeta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
of
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
; the
Bukharan JewsBukharan Jews, also Bukharian Jews or Bukhari Jews, or яҳудиёни Бухоро Yahūdieni Bukhoro , Bukhori Hebrew Script: יהודיאני בוכאראי and יהודיאני בוכארי), also called the Binai Israel, are Jews from Central Asia who speak Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language...
of
Central AsiaCentral Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
; and
Chinese JewsJews and Judaism in China have had a long history. Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, but may have arrived during the mid Han Dynasty, or even as early as 231 BCE. Relatively isolated communities developed through the Tang and Song Dynasties Jews and...
, most notably the
Kaifeng JewsThe Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai in Mandarin Chinese which is also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for...
, as well as various other distinct but now extinct communities.
The divisions between all these groups are rough and their boundaries aren't solid. The
Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n and
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern Jewish communities which are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are also termed
Sephardi due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent evolutions from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Iranian Jews,
Iraqi JewsThe history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities....
,
Egyptian JewsEgyptian Jews constitute both one of the oldest and youngest Jewish communities in the world. While no exact census exists, the Jewish population of Egypt was estimated at fewer than a hundred in 2004, down from between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1922. The historic core of the indigenous community...
, Tunisian Jews, Algerian Jews, Moroccan Jews,
Lebanese JewsThe history of the Jews in Lebanon deals with the presence of Jews in Lebanon, which stretches back to Biblical times.-Jews in Lebanon today:Lebanese Jews are traditionally a Mizrahi community living mostly in and around Beirut...
,
Kurdish JewsKurdish Jews or Kurdistani Jews are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities, inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan in northern Mesopotamia, roughly covering parts of Iran, northern Iraq, Syria and eastern Turkey. Their clothing and culture is similar to neighbouring Kurdish Muslims and Christian...
,
Libyan JewsThe history of the Jews in Libya stretches back to the 3rd century BCE, when Cyrenaica was under Greek rule. During World War II, Libya's Jewish population was subjected to anti-Semitic laws by the Fascist Italian regime and deportations by German troops...
,
Syrian JewsSyrian Jews derive their origin from two groups: those who inhabited Syria from early times and the Sephardim who fled to Syria after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain . There were large communities in Aleppo, Damascus, and Qamishli for centuries. In the early twentieth century a large...
, and various others. The
Yemenite JewsYemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...
("Teimanim") from
YemenThe Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
and
OmanOman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...
are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. Additionally, there is a difference between the pre-existing Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities as distinct from the descendants of those Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by the
Catholic MonarchsThe Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...
in 1492, and a few years later from the expulsion decreed in
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
.
Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, estimated at between 70% and 80% of all Jews worldwide; prior to
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
however, it was 90%. While Ashkenazim developed in Europe, their massive emigration from Europe for better opportunities, and during periods of civil strife and warfare, they also became the overwhelming majority of Jews in the
New WorldThe New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
continents and countries, which previously were without native European or Jewish populations. These include the
United StatesThe history of the Jews in the United States , has been part of the American national fabric since colonial times.Until the 1830s the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina was the most numerous in North America. With the large scale immigration of Jews from Germany in the 19th century,...
,
Canada,
United KingdomFor details of the History of the Jews in the United Kingdom, as well as prior to the formation of the United Kingdom in 1707, see:* History of the Jews in England* History of the Jews in Scotland* History of the Jews in Northern Ireland...
,
ArgentinaThe history of the Jews of Argentina goes back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition, when Jews fleeing persecution settled in what is now Argentina. Many of the Portuguese traders in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata were Jewish, but an organized Jewish community...
,
AustraliaThe history of the Jews in Australia dates back to 1788, when a number of Jews were among the convicts brought to the country aboard the First Fleet to establish the first European settlement on the continent, on the site of present-day Sydney. Today, an estimated 120,000 Jews live in Australia...
,
BrazilA Brazilian Jew is a Brazilian person of Jewish ancestry or a Brazilian who has converted to Judaism....
and South Africa, but with
VenezuelaThe History of the Jews in Venezuela dates to the middle of the 17th century, when records suggest that groups of marranos lived in Caracas and Maracaibo. The Jewish community, however, did not become established in Venezuela until the middle of the 19th century...
and Panama being exceptions since
SefaradimSephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
still compose the majority of the Jewish communities in these two countries. In
FranceThe history of the Jews of France dates back over 2,000 years. In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on...
, more recent Sephardi Jewish immigrants from North Africa and their descendants now outnumber the pre-existing Ashkenazim. Only in
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a
melting potThe melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.
Genetic studies of DNA
{{See also|Y-chromosomal Aaron|Genealogical DNA test|Matrilineality}}
{{Main|Genetic studies on Jews}}
Despite the evident diversity displayed by the world's distinct Jewish populations, both culturally and physically,
geneticDeoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
studies have demonstrated most of these to be genetically related to one another, having ultimately originated from a common ancient
IsraeliteAccording to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent
evolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
s.
A study published by the
National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
stated that "The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora." Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the
diasporaA diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
has become dispersed around the world.
Moreover,
DNADeoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
tests have demonstrated substantially less inter-marriage in most of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years than in other populations. The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded by entirely gentile populations that adopted the Jewish faith, as in the notable case of the historic
KhazarsThe Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...
. Although groups such as the Khazars could have been absorbed into modern Jewish populations — in the Khazars' case, absorbed into the Ashkenazim — it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Ashkenazi Jews, and much less that they were the genesis of the Ashkenazim.
Even the
archetypeAn archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
of Israelite-origin is also beginning to be reviewed for some Jewish populations amid newer studies. Previously, the Israelite origin identified in the world's Jewish populations was attributed only to the males who had migrated from the Middle East and then forged the current known communities with "the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism". Research in Ashkenazi Jews has suggested that, in addition to the male founders, significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East, with about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population descended matrilineally from just four women, or "founder lineages", that were "likely from a
HebrewHebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
/
LevantThe Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
ine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.
Points in which Jewish groups differ is largely in the source and proportion of genetic contribution from host populations. As examples, the Teimanim differ from other Mizrahim, as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of
sub-Saharan AfricaSub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
n gene types which have entered their
gene poolIn population genetics, a gene pool is the complete set of unique alleles in a species or population.- Description :A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection...
s. Among
YemenitesYemenites can be either:* Citizens of Yemen or persons residing in Yemen* Yemenite Jews, a minority group within Israel...
, the average stands at 35% lineages within the past 3,000 years. Yemenite Jews, as a traditionally Arabic-speaking community of local Yemenite and Israelite ancestries, are included within the findings, though they average a quarter of the frequency of the non-Jewish Yemenite sample. In Ashkenazi Jews, the proportion of male indigenous European genetic admixture amounts to around 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, and a total admixture estimate around 12.5%. The only exception to this amongst Jewish communities is in the
Beta IsraelBeta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
(Ethiopian Jews); a 1999 genetic study came to the conclusion that "the distinctiveness of the Y-chromosome
haplotypeA haplotype in genetics is a combination of alleles at adjacent locations on the chromosome that are transmitted together...
distribution of Beta Israel Jews from conventional Jewish populations and their relatively greater similarity in haplotype profile to non-Jewish Ethiopians are consistent with the view that the Beta Israel people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism."
Another 2001 study did, however, find a possible genetic similarity between 11 Ethiopian Jews and 4 Yemenite Jews from the
population samplesIn statistics and survey methodology, sampling is concerned with the selection of a subset of individuals from within a population to estimate characteristics of the whole population....
.
DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe — "
CohanimA Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
" — share a common ancestor dating back about 3,000 years. This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world. The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Cohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of
the Biblical ExodusThe Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
) and 586 BCE, when the
BabyloniaBabylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
ns destroyed the
First TempleSolomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....
. They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.
Geographic distribution
Because of the independence of local communities, Jewish ethnicities, even when they circumscribe differences in liturgy, language, cuisine and other cultural accoutrements, are more often a reflection of geographic and historical isolation from other communities. It is for this reason that communities are referred to by referencing the historical region in which the community cohered when discussing their practices, regardless of where those practices are found today.
The smaller groups number in the hundreds to tens of thousands, with the
Georgian JewsThe Georgian Jews are from the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus...
(also known as
Gruzinim or
Qartveli Ebraeli) and
Beta IsraelBeta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
being most numerous at somewhat over 100,000 each. Many members of these groups have now emigrated from their traditional homelands, largely to Israel. For example, only about 10 percent of the
Gruzinim remain in Georgia.
The Jewish communities of the modern world can all be found represented today in Israel, which is as much a
melting potThe melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
as it is a
salad bowlThe salad bowl concept suggests that the integration of the many different cultures of United States residents combine like a salad, as opposed to the more traditional notion of a cultural melting pot. In Canada this concept is more commonly known as the cultural mosaic...
of different Jewish ethnic groups.
A brief description of the extant communities, by the geographic regions with which they are associated, is as follows:
Europe
- Ashkenazim
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
are the descendants of Jews who migrated into northern FranceThe history of the Jews of France dates back over 2,000 years. In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on...
and GermanyThe presence of Jews in Germany has been established since the early 4th century. The community prospered under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades...
around 800–1000, and later into Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. Ashkenazim comprise the overwhelming majority of Jews, with approximately 80 percent of the Jewish total (prior to the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, they were an even greater percentage of world Jewry). Even among the Ashkenazim there are a number of major subgroups:
- Western Jews, stemming from northern France, from the Lowlands
The North European Plain is a geomorphological region in Europe. It consists of the low plains between the Central European Highlands to the south and the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the north. These two seas are separated by the Jutland peninsula...
, historical Germany, the Austro-Hungarian EmpireHungarian Jews have existed since at least the 11th century. After struggling against discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, by the early 20th century the community grew to be 5% of Hungary's population , and were prominent in science, the arts and business...
, SwitzerlandJews and Judaism have been present in the territory of what is now Switzerland since before the emergence of the medieval Old Swiss Confederacy.In contemporary Switzerland, the official census of the year 2000 reports close to 18,000 adherents of Judaism living in Switzerland . About half of them...
, and ScandinaviaScandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, originally spoke Western YiddishYiddish dialects are varieties of the Yiddish language. These dialects are divided by originating region in Europe. Northeastern "Litvish" Yiddish was dominant in twentieth-century Yiddish culture and academia, while Southern dialects of Yiddish are now the most commonly spoken, preserved by many...
, which had less slavic influence than other Yiddish dialects. By the early 20th century, Yiddish was in decline in this population, and assimilation was proceeding rapidly. In Israel, a sometimes derogatory term for these Jews (also applied to Austrian Oberlander Jews), is YekkeThe term Yekke is a generally jovial, mildly derogatory term primarily used by Jews to refer to their coreligionists from Germany or who adhere to the Western-European minhag....
s.
- Oberlander
Oberlander Jews are Ashkenazi, Yiddish- and German-speaking Jews originating in the Oberland or higher land western region of Hungary and the district surrounding Pozsony...
, originating in the OberlandOberland may refer to: Germany*Oberland am Rennsteig, Sonneberg, Thuringia, Germany*Vogtländisches Oberland, Greiz, Thuringia, Germany*In East Prussia, the Elbląg Canal was named Oberländischer KanalSwitzerland...
region of HungaryHungarian Jews have existed since at least the 11th century. After struggling against discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, by the early 20th century the community grew to be 5% of Hungary's population , and were prominent in science, the arts and business...
and the district surrounding BratislavaBratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
in SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, originally spoke western Yiddish. In modern times before the Holocaust, many Oberlander Jews migrated to urban centers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and adopted German or Hungarian as their first language.
- Polish Jews, from Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
.
- Central (Galitzianers) from Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, south-western PolandThe history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
, western UkraineJewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus' and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions. While at times they flourished, at other times they faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discriminatory...
and northern Serbia
- Lithuanian Jews
The history of the Jews in Lithuania spans the period from the eighth century to the present day. There is still a small community in that country, as well as an extensive Lithuanian Jewish diaspora in Israel, the United States and other countries. For more detail, see Lithuanian Jews.-Early...
("Litvak Jews"), (North-eastern Europe)
- Southeastern, predominantly from Ukraine, Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
and RomaniaThe history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
- Romaniotes
The Romaniotes or Romaniots are a Jewish population who have lived in the territory of today's Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations for more than 2,000 years. Their languages were Yevanic, a Greek dialect, and Greek. They derived their name from the old name for the people...
are GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
-speaking Jews from the BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
that lived there from the Hellenistic era until today.
- Sephardim
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
are Jews whose ancestors lived in SpainSpanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule in Spain, before the majority, together with resident Muslims, were forced to convert to Catholicism, be expelled or be killed when Spain became united under the Catholic Monarchs...
or PortugalThe history of the Jews in Portugal reaches back over two thousand years and is directly related to Sephardi history, a Jewish ethnic division that represents communities who have originated in the Iberian Peninsula .-Before Portugal:...
, where they lived for possibly as much as two millennia before being expelled in 1492 by the Catholic MonarchsThe Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...
(see Alhambra decreeThe Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
); they subsequently migrated to the Islamic North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n MaghrebThe Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
and Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
(both at the time considered safe havens for Jews). In the Ottoman Empire the Sephardim mostly settled in the European portion of the EmpireThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, and mainly in the major cities such as ConstantinopleIstanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, ThessalonikiThessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, SarajevoSarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
, Monastir-Places:Italy* Monastir, Sardinia - a comune in the Province of CagliariOttoman Empire* Monastir Province, Ottoman Empire, a vilayet covering parts of modern Albania, Greece and the Republic of MacedoniaRepublic of Macedonia...
– modern-day Bitola in the Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, SofiaSofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
and other cities in BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and Bursa. Prior to World War II, ThessalonikiThessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, which today is the second largest city in GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community of approximately 50,000. Another was the community of Maltese JewsThe history of the Jews in Malta can be traced back to approximately 62 CE. Most contemporary Maltese Jews are Sefardic, however an Ashkenazic prayer book is used.-Antiquity:...
in MaltaMalta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. Others settled in ItalyThe history of the Jews in Italy goes back over two thousand years. Jews have been present in Italy from the Roman period until the present.-Antiquity:-Pre-Christian Rome:...
and the NetherlandsMost history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century and World War II.The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence...
, and Latin AmericaThe history of the Jews in Latin America dates, according to some interpretations, back to Christopher Columbus and his first cross-Atlantic voyage on August 3, 1492, when he left Spain and eventually discovered the New World...
. Among those who settled in the Netherlands, some would again relocate to the United States, establishing the country's first organized community of Jews and erecting the United States' first synagogue. Other Sephardim remained in Spain and Portugal as anusimAnusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced or coerced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion...
(forced converts to Catholicism), which would also be the fate for those who had migrated to Spanish and Portuguese ruled Latin America.
- Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardim who have their main ethnic origins within the Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula and who shaped communities mainly in Western Europe and the Americas from the late 16th century on...
Nação – West Europe Sephardim
- Iberian Crypto-Jews
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews"...
– Belmonte JewsThe history of the Jews in Belmonte, Portugal, reaches back over six hundred years.-Belmonte marranos:The marranos that have been living in Belmonte are sometimes referred to as the "Belmonte Jews." They are a community that has survived in secrecy for hundreds of years by maintaining a tradition...
of Portugal, the XuetesThe Xuetes , were a social group on the island of Majorca, descendants of Majorcan Jews who either converted to Christianity or were forced to keep their religion hidden...
of Balearic IslandsThe Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
.
- Bené Roma or Italkim represent many of the Italian Jews
Italian Jews can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living or with roots in Italy or in a narrower sense to mean the ancient community who use the Italian rite, as distinct from the communities dating from medieval or modern times who use the Sephardi or Ashkenazi rite.-Divisions:Italian...
, though Italy also has both Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities.
- Chuts
Chuts is the name applied to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands during the latter part of the 19th century. They typically came from Amsterdam and practised trades they had already learned there, most notably cigar, cap and slipper making....
were Dutch JewsMost history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century and World War II.The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence...
, observing an amalgam of Ashkenazi and Sephardi customs, living in London, although this community has almost completely been lost to history.
- San Nicandro Jews – A group of mid-20th century converts from Italy.
The Caucasus and the Crimea
- Qartveli Ebraeli
The Georgian Jews are from the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus...
, or Gruzinim, are GeorgianGeorgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
-speaking Jews from GeorgiaThe history of the Jews in Georgia dates back more than 2,000 years. Georgian Jews have been living in this area for centuries.-History:The Georgian Jews have traditionally maintained a distinct community, separate not only from the Georgian Christian population but even from the Ashkenazi ...
in the CaucasusThe Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
.
- Juhurim are mountain Jews mainly from Daghestan and Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
in the eastern Caucasus.
- Krymchaks
The Krymchaks are a Turkic people, community of Turkic languages and adherents of Rabbinic Judaism living in Crimea. They have historically lived in close proximity to the Crimean Karaites...
and KaraimKaraim may refer to:*Crimean Karaites, the article about this group, and*Karaim language, the article about their language.*Karaite Judaism, a Jewish movement....
are Turkic-speaking Jews of the CrimeaCrimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
and Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. The Krymchaks practice Rabbinic JudaismRabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Talmud...
, while the Karaim practice Karaite JudaismKaraite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
. Whether they are primarily the descendants of Israelite Jews who adopted Turkic language and culture, or the descendants of Turkic converts to Judaism, is still debated, although the question is irrelevant as far as Jewish law is concerned, according to which they are Jews, regardless of whether by Israelite descent or by conversion.
- The 750 Armenian Jews
The history of the Jews in Armenia dates back more than 2,000 years.-Armenian Kingdom:Tournebize holds that the Assyrians deported Jews directly to Armenia, and not to the Khabur valley. Aslan mentions that the Jews of Samaria were deported to Armenia....
today comprise a minuscule remnant of an ancient population dating back over 2,500 years, and once numbering as many as 100,000.
- Subbotniks
Subbotniks are one of the Russian religious bodies known under the general name of "Judaizing Christian sects". On the whole, the Subbotniks originally differed probably very little from other Judaizing societies. They first appeared during the reign of Catherine II, toward the end of the...
are a dwindling group of Jews from Azerbaijan and Armenia, whose ancestors were Russian peasants who converted to Judaism for unknown reasons in the 19th century.
North Africa, Middle East, Central Asia
Jews originating from Muslim lands are generally called by the catch-all term
Mizrahi JewsMizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus...
, more precise terms for particular groups are:
- Bukharan Jews
Bukharan Jews, also Bukharian Jews or Bukhari Jews, or яҳудиёни Бухоро Yahūdieni Bukhoro , Bukhori Hebrew Script: יהודיאני בוכאראי and יהודיאני בוכארי), also called the Binai Israel, are Jews from Central Asia who speak Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language...
are Jews from Central Asia. They get their name from the former Central Asian Emirate of BukharaThe Emirate of Bukhara was a Central Asian state that existed from 1785 to 1920. It occupied the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, known formerly as Transoxiana. Its core territory was the land along the lower Zarafshan River, and its urban centres were the ancient cities of...
, which once had a large Jewish population.
- Iraqi Jews
The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities....
are descendants of the Jews who have lived in MesopotamiaMesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
since the time of the Assyrian conquest of SamariaIn approximately 701 BCE, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked the fortified cities of Judah, laying siege on Jerusalem. The historical outcome of the siege is unclear.-Background:...
- Kurdish Jews
Kurdish Jews or Kurdistani Jews are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities, inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan in northern Mesopotamia, roughly covering parts of Iran, northern Iraq, Syria and eastern Turkey. Their clothing and culture is similar to neighbouring Kurdish Muslims and Christian...
from Kurdistan, as distinct from the Persian Jews of central and eastern Persia, as well as from the lowland Iraqi Jews of Mesopotamia.
- Persian Jews
Persian Jews , are Jews historically associated with Iran, traditionally known as Persia in Western sources.Judaism is one of the oldest religions practiced in Iran. The Book of Esther contains some references to the experiences of Jews in Persia...
from Iran (commonly called Parsim in Israel) have a 2700-year history. One of the oldest Jewish communities of the world, Persian Jews constitute the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel.
- Yemenite Jews
Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...
(Temanim) are Oriental Jews whose geographic and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community allowed them to develop a liturgyLiturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
and set of practices that are significantly distinct from other Oriental Jewish groups; they themselves comprise three distinctly different groups, though the distinction is one of religious law and liturgy rather than of ethnicity.
- Palestinian Jews are Jewish inhabitants of Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
throughout certain periods of Middle Eastern history. After the modern State of Israel was born, nearly all native Palestinian Jews became citizens of Israel, and the term "Palestinian Jews" largely fell into disuse.
- Egyptian Jews
Egyptian Jews constitute both one of the oldest and youngest Jewish communities in the world. While no exact census exists, the Jewish population of Egypt was estimated at fewer than a hundred in 2004, down from between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1922. The historic core of the indigenous community...
are generally Jews thought to have descended from the great Jewish communities of Hellenistic Alexandria, mixed with many more recent groups of immigrants. These include Babylonian Jews following the Muslim conquest; Jews from Palestine following the Crusades; Sephardim following the expulsion from Spain; Italian Jews settling for trading reasons in the 18th and 19th centuries; and Jews from Aleppo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Lebanese Jews
The history of the Jews in Lebanon deals with the presence of Jews in Lebanon, which stretches back to Biblical times.-Jews in Lebanon today:Lebanese Jews are traditionally a Mizrahi community living mostly in and around Beirut...
are the Jews that lived around BeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
. After the Lebanese Civil WarThe Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...
, the community's emigration appears to have been completed; few remain in Lebanon today.
- Omani Jews
There was a Jewish presence in Oman for many centuries, however, the Jewish community of the country is no longer existent.-Early Jewish history:Some of the earliest Jewish history in what is now Oman is associated with the Biblical/Quranic figure Job/Ayyoub...
are the early Jewish community of SoharSohar is the most developed city in Sultanate of Oman outside the capital Muscat. It is about 200 kilometers north of Muscat. Sohar was an ancient capital of Oman and many believe it to be the birthplace of Sinbad the Sailor...
. They are thought to be descendants of Ishaq bin Yahuda, a Sohari merchant around the first millennium. This community is believed to have disappeared by 1900.
- Syrian Jews
Syrian Jews derive their origin from two groups: those who inhabited Syria from early times and the Sephardim who fled to Syria after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain . There were large communities in Aleppo, Damascus, and Qamishli for centuries. In the early twentieth century a large...
are generally divided into two groups: those who inhabited Syria from the time of King David (1000 BC), and those who fled to Syria after the Spanish Inquisition (1492), at the invitation of the Ottoman sultan. There were large communities in both Aleppo and DamascusDamascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
for centuries. In the early 20th century, a large percentage of Syrian Jews emigrated to the U.S., South America, and Israel. Today, there are almost no Jews left in Syria. The largest Syrian-Jewish community is located in Brooklyn, New York, and is estimated at 40,000.
Sub-Saharan Africa
{{Main|Jews and Judaism in Africa}}
- Abayudaya
The Abayudaya are a Baganda community in eastern Uganda near the town of Mbale who practice Judaism. Although they are not genetically or historically related to other ethnic Jews, they are devout in their practice of the religion, keeping their version of kashrut, and observing Shabbat...
of UgandaUganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
- Beta Israel
Beta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
or Falashim of EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, tens of thousands migrated to Israel during Operation MosesOperation Moses refers to the covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan during a famine in 1984...
(1984), Operation ShebaOperation Joshua was the 1985 removal of 800 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel.George H. W. Bush, Vice-President of the United States at the time, arranged a CIA-sponsored follow-up mission to Operation Moses, which had brought 8000 people to Israel. Under Operation Joshua, an additional 800...
(1985) and Operation SolomonOperation Solomon was a 1991 covert Israeli military operation to take Ethiopian Jews to Israel.In 1991, the sitting Ethiopian government of Mengistu Haile Mariam was close to being toppled with the recent military successes of Eritrean and Tigrean rebels, threatening Ethiopia with dangerous...
(1991).
- Descendants of the Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
Jews of the Bilad al-Sudan describes West African Jewish communities who were connected to known Jewish communities from the Middle East, North Africa, or Spain and Portugal. Various historical records attest to their presence at one time in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires, then called the...
. Jews whose ancestry was derived from the communities that once existed in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhay Empire. AnusimAnusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced or coerced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion...
in and around Mali who descend from Jewish migrations from North Africa, East Africa, and Spain.
- The House of Israel, several hundred Sefwi
The Sefwi are an Akan people.They live predominantly in the Ivory Coast....
tribesmen in GhanaGhana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
- The emergent Igbo Jewish
The Igbo Jews are members of the Igbo people of Nigeria who claim descent from Mediterranean Israelite migrants into Nigeria.-Argument for the Historical Migration of the Igbo Jews:...
community of NigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, perhaps as many as 30,000 strong (although many of them maintain a belief in the Messiahship of Jesus and adhere to basic tenets of Christianity that are mutually exclusive of normative Judaism).
- The Lemba
The Lemba or 'wa-Remba' are a southern African ethnic group to be found in Zimbabwe and South Africa with some little known branches in Mozambique and Malawi. According to Parfitt they are thought to number 70,000...
in MalawiThe Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
which number as many as 40,000. This group claims descent from ancient Israelite tribes that migrated down to southern Africa via southern Arabia. Genetic testing has partially upheld these claims. Many are now moving toward practising normative Judaism.
- The Jews of Rusape
The Jews of Rusape, Zimbabwe are a group of about 4,000 people who practice a form of Judaism that is unique solely to their community. These people believe they are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, exiled from the Jewish homeland by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. In fact, they believe that...
, ZimbabweZimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, also claim descent from ancient Jewish communities. Although they held a belief in Jesus as a prophet, the community is now shifting towards mainstream Judaism and abandoning their belief in JesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. They are not considered Jews by most of the Jewish world.
- South African Jews make up the largest community of Jews in Africa. Dutch Sephardic Jews were among the first permanent residents of Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
when the city was founded by the VOCThe Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
in 1652. Today, however, most of South Africa's Jews are Ashkenazi and, in particular, of Lithuanian descent.
- Communities also existed in São Tomé e Príncipe, descended from Portuguese Jewish youths expelled during the Inquisition.
South and East Asia
- Bene Israel
The Bene Israel are a group of Jews who migrated in the 19th century from villages in the Konkan area to the nearby Indian cities, primarily Mumbai, but also to Pune, and Ahmedabad. Prior to these waves of emigrations and to this day, the Bene Israel formed the largest sector of the subcontinent's...
are the Jews of MumbaiMumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, most of whom now reside in Israel.
- Cochin Jews
Cochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews , are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon, though historically attested migration dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historically, they lived in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the...
are also Indian Jews from south-western India, most of whom also now reside in Israel. Included among these are the Paradesi JewsParadesi Jews are a community of Sephardic Jews settled among the larger Cochin Jewish community located in Kerala, a coastal southern state...
.
- Syrian Malabar Nasrani
The Syrian Malabar Nasrani people, also known as Saint Thomas Christians, "'Nasrani Mappila'" and Nasranis, are an ethnoreligious group from Kerala, India, adhering to the various churches of the Saint Thomas Christian tradition...
s (or Nasranis) are Christians in south-western India who trace their origins to early Nazarene Jews. They are Jews by genealogy and descent and also related to the Cochin JewsCochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews , are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon, though historically attested migration dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historically, they lived in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the...
and to Ashkenazi Jews as proved recently by DNA studies on the community. Some of them also are reported to carry the Cohen gene marker, Cohen Modal HaplotypeY-chromosomal Aaron is the name given to the hypothesised most recent common ancestor of many of the patrilineal Jewish priestly caste known as Kohanim . In the Torah, this ancestor is identified as Aaron, the brother of Moses...
, indicating Aaronic descent for some.
- Baghdadi Jews
Baghdadi Jews, also known as Iraqi Jews, are Jewish emigrants from Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, who fled religious persecution and formed immigrant communities in their new homelands...
http://adaniel.tripod.com/baghdadi.htm Those Jews came from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Arab countries who settled in India in 18th century.
- Bnei Menashe
The Bnei Menashe are a group of more than 9,000 people from India's North-Eastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The claim appeared after a Pentecostalist dreamt in 1951 that his people's pre-Christian religion was Judaism and that...
. A group of Jews living in ManipurManipur is a state in northeastern India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. Manipur is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west; it also borders Burma to the east. It covers an area of...
and MizoramMizoram is one of the Seven Sister States in North Eastern India, sharing borders with the states of Tripura, Assam, Manipur and with the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Burma. Mizoram became the 23rd state of India on 20 February 1987. Its capital is Aizawl. Mizoram is located in the...
in north-eastern IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, claiming descent from the dispersed BiblicalThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
Tribe of Menasseh.
- Bene Ephraim
The Bene Ephraim, also called Telugu Jews because they speak Telugu, are a small community of Jews living primarily in Kottareddipalem, a village outside Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, near the delta of the River Krishna....
, the TeluguTelugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
-speaking Jews of Kottareddipalem in Andhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
, India.
- Chinese Jews
Jews and Judaism in China have had a long history. Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, but may have arrived during the mid Han Dynasty, or even as early as 231 BCE. Relatively isolated communities developed through the Tang and Song Dynasties Jews and...
: most prominent were the Kaifeng JewsThe Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai in Mandarin Chinese which is also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for...
, an ancient Jewish community in ChinaJews and Judaism in China have had a long history. Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, but may have arrived during the mid Han Dynasty, or even as early as 231 BCE. Relatively isolated communities developed through the Tang and Song Dynasties Jews and...
, descended from merchants living in China from at least the era of the Tang dynastyThe Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
. Today functionally extinct, although several hundred descendants have recently begun to explore and reclaim their heritage.
- Pakistani Jews
Jews are a small religious group in Pakistan. Various estimates suggest that there were about 1,000 Jews living in Karachi at the beginning of the twentieth century. A smaller community of Jews also lived in Peshawar. Many of these are Baghdadi Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mizrahi Jews mainly from...
: There was a thriving Jewish community in Pakistan particularly around the city of KarachiKarachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
but also in other urban areas up north such as in Peshawer, RawalpindiRawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
and LahoreLahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
. The origins of the Jewish community was mixed with some being Bene IsraelThe Bene Israel are a group of Jews who migrated in the 19th century from villages in the Konkan area to the nearby Indian cities, primarily Mumbai, but also to Pune, and Ahmedabad. Prior to these waves of emigrations and to this day, the Bene Israel formed the largest sector of the subcontinent's...
, Bukharan JewsBukharan Jews, also Bukharian Jews or Bukhari Jews, or яҳудиёни Бухоро Yahūdieni Bukhoro , Bukhori Hebrew Script: יהודיאני בוכאראי and יהודיאני בוכארי), also called the Binai Israel, are Jews from Central Asia who speak Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language...
and Baghdadi JewsBaghdadi Jews, also known as Iraqi Jews, are Jewish emigrants from Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, who fled religious persecution and formed immigrant communities in their new homelands...
. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Jewish refugees from Iran had also came via Pakistan's Balochistan province and reached Karachi until the Iranian government closed down the operation. Most of Pakistan's Jewish community has not relocated to Israel and Pakistan's Jewish population is believed to number around 700.
- Afghan Jews: Records of a Jewish population in Afghanistan go back to the 7th century. Before the arrival of Islam in Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
, Kabul and GandharaGandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
were trading places for Jewish merchants. It is also believed that a large Jewish culture was present during the Greco-BuddhismGreco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, refers to the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE in the area covered by the Indian sub-continent, and modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-western...
era. After the arrival of Mahmud of GhazniMahmud of Ghazni , actually ', was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled from 997 until his death in 1030 in the eastern Iranian lands. Mahmud turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Iran,...
and other MughalThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
leaders, Jewish culture demised and gradually vanished. The theory of Pashtun descent from IsraelitesThe theory that the Pashtun people originate from the exiled Lost Tribes of Israel was first debated by Western historians after the 19th century...
—that the Pashtun peoplePashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
are related to the Ten Lost TribesThe Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to those tribes of ancient Israel that formed the Kingdom of Israel and which disappeared from Biblical and all other historical accounts after the kingdom was destroyed in about 720 BC by ancient Assyria...
—continues to have both supporters and detractors.
Americas
Most Jewish communities in the Americas are descendants of Jews who found their way there at different times of modern history. The first Jews to settle in the Americas were of Spanish/Portuguese origin. Today, however, the great majority of recognized Jews on both the
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n and
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n continents are Ashkenazi, particularly among
Jews in the United StatesAmerican Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
. There are also Mizrahim and other diaspora groups represented (as well as mixes of any or all of these) as mentioned above. Some unique communities associated with the Americas include:
- Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
Crypto-JewsCrypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews"...
are the descendants of Sephardi immigrants to the New WorldThe New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
escaping the Spanish InquisitionThe Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
in SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. Following the establishment of the Inquisition in the Iberian colonies, again they hid their ancestry and beliefs. Their numbers are difficult to ascertain as most are at least nominally CatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
, having been forcefully converted, converted for forms sake, or married into the religion. Collectively, people of Jewish descent in Latin America could surpass the millions. Most would be of mixed ancestry, although a few claim some communities may have been able to maintain a degree of endogamyEndogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...
(marrying only other Crypto-Jews) throughout the centuries. They may or may not consider themselves Jewish, some may continue to preserve some of their Jewish heritage in secrecy, many others may not even be aware of it. The majority would not be halakhicallyHalakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
Jewish, but small numbers of various communities have formally returned to Judaism over the past decade, legitimizing their status as Jews. See also AnusimAnusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced or coerced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion...
.
- Amazonian Jews
Amazonian Jews are the communities of mostly Moroccan Jewish descendants found in Amazon basin cities and river villages of Brazil and Peru, including Belém, Santarém, Manaus, Iquitos, Tarapoto and others....
are the mixed descendants of Moroccan Jewish communities in BelémBelém is a Brazilian city, the capital and largest city of state of Pará, in the country's north region. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and bus/coach station...
, Santarém, ManausManaus is a city in Brazil, the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is situated at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. It is the most populous city of Amazonas, according to the statistics of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and is a popular ecotourist destination....
, IquitosIquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
, TarapotoTarapoto, known as the "City of Palms", is a thriving commercial hub in northern Peru, an hour by plane from Lima, situated in the San Martín Province of the San Martín Region, located in the high jungle plateau to the east of what is known as the selva baja...
and many river villages in the Amazon basinThe Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
in BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
.
- Iquitos Jews are the "accidental" descendants of mostly Moroccan Jewish traders and tappers who arrived in the Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian Amazon city of IquitosIquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
during the rubber boomThe rubber boom was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related with the extraction and commercialization of rubber...
of the 1880s. Since their Jewish descent was patrilineal (Jewish traders had been all males who coupled up with local mestizoMestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
or Amerindian females), their Jewishness is not recognised according to halakhaHalakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
. An enduring castaCasta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period...
system stemming from the colonial period has resulted in virtually no interaction between the Iquitos Jews and the small, mostly Ashkenazi Jewish, population concentrated in LimaLima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
(under 3,000) who are integrated into Lima's elite white minority. Thanks to efforts made by Israeli outreach programmes, some have formally returned to Judaism, made aliyahAliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
and now live in IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
- B'nai Moshe
The B'nai Moshe , also known as Inca Jews, are a small group of several hundred converts to Judaism originally from the city of Trujillo, Peru, to the north of the capital city Lima...
are converts to Judaism originally from Trujillo, PeruTrujillo, in northwestern Peru, is the capital of the La Libertad Region, and the third largest city in Peru. The urban area has 811,979 inhabitants and is an economic hub in northern Peru...
. They are also known as Inca Jews, a name derived from the fact that they can trace indigenous Amerindian descent, as most are mestizoMestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
s (persons of both Spanish and Amerindian descent) though none with any known ancestors from other Jewish communities. Again, there is no interaction between Peru's small Ashkenazi population and the Inca Jews. At the neglect of the Ashkenazi community, the conversions were conducted under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Most have made aliyahAliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
and now live in Israel, while a few hundred more of the same community are awaiting conversions.
- Veracruz Jews are a recently emergent community of Jews in Veracruz
Veracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...
, MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Whether they are gentile converts to Judaism or descendants of anusimAnusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced or coerced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion...
returning to Judaism is speculative. Most claim they descend from anusim.
Israel
{{refimprovesection|date=September 2011}}
By the time the
State of IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
was proclaimed, the majority of Jews in the state and the region were Ashkenazi. Following the declaration of the state, a flood of Jewish migrants and refugees entered Israel
from the Arab worldThe Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries was a mass departure, flight and expulsion of Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab and Muslim countries, from 1948 until the early 1970s...
and the
Muslim worldThe term Muslim world has several meanings. In a religious sense, it refers to those who adhere to the teachings of Islam, referred to as Muslims. In a cultural sense, it refers to Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization...
in general. Most were Sephardim and Mizrahim, which included Jews from the
MaghrebThe Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
, Yemenite Jews,
Bukharan JewsBukharan Jews, also Bukharian Jews or Bukhari Jews, or яҳудиёни Бухоро Yahūdieni Bukhoro , Bukhori Hebrew Script: יהודיאני בוכאראי and יהודיאני בוכארי), also called the Binai Israel, are Jews from Central Asia who speak Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language...
,
Persian JewsPersian Jews , are Jews historically associated with Iran, traditionally known as Persia in Western sources.Judaism is one of the oldest religions practiced in Iran. The Book of Esther contains some references to the experiences of Jews in Persia...
, Iraqi Jews,
Kurdish JewsKurdish Jews or Kurdistani Jews are the ancient Eastern Jewish communities, inhabiting the region known as Kurdistan in northern Mesopotamia, roughly covering parts of Iran, northern Iraq, Syria and eastern Turkey. Their clothing and culture is similar to neighbouring Kurdish Muslims and Christian...
, and smaller communities, principally from Libya, Egypt and Turkey. More recently, other communities have also arrived including
Ethiopian JewsBeta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
and Indian Jews. Because of the relative homogeneity of Ashkenazic Jewry, especially by comparison to the diversity of the many smaller communities, over time in Israel,
all Jews from Europe came to be called "
Ashkenazi" in Israel, whether or not they had any connection with Germany, while Jews from Africa and Asia have come to be called "Sephardi", whether or not they had any connection with Spain. One reason is that most African and Asian Jewish communities use the Sephardic prayer ritual and abide by the rulings of Sephardic rabbinic authorities, and therefore consider themselves to be "Sephardim" in the broader sense of "Jews of the Spanish rite", though not in the narrower sense of "Spanish Jews". Similarly "Ashkenazim" has the broader sense of "Jews of the German rite".
The founders of modern Israel, mostly Ashkenazi Jews, are often said to have believed themselves superior to these new arrivals. With higher degrees of
WesternThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
-standard education, they were better positioned to take full advantage of the emerging Western-style
liberal democracyLiberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
and Western mode of living which they themselves had established as the cultural norm in Palestine during the pre-state era.
Cultural and/or "racial" biases against the newcomers were compounded by the fledgling state's lack of financial resources and inadequate housing to handle the massive population influx. Thus, hundreds of thousands of new Sephardic immigrants were sent to live in tent cities in outlying areas. Sephardim (in its wider meaning) were often victims of discrimination, and were sometimes called
schwartze (meaning "black" in Yiddish).
Worse than housing discrimination was the differential treatment accorded the children of these immigrants, many of whom were tracked by the largely European education establishment into dead-end "vocational" schools, without any real assessment of their intellectual capacities. Mizrahi Jews protested their unfair treatment, and even established the
Israeli Black PanthersThe Black Panthers were an Israeli protest movement of second-generation Jewish immigrants from Middle Eastern countries. They were one of the first organizations in Israel with the mission of working for social justice for the Mizrahi Jews...
movement with the mission of working for social justice.
The effects of this early discrimination still linger a half-century later, as documented by the studies of the
Adva Center-History:Adva was founded in 1991 by activists from three social movements: the movement for equality for Mizrahi Jews, the feminist movement, and the movement for equal rights for Arab citizens. The director of the center is Barbara Svirski and its chairman is Yossi Dahan.-Objectives:Adva Center...
, a think tank on social equality, and by other Israeli academic research (cf., for example, Tel Aviv University Professor Yehuda Shenhav's article in Hebrew documenting the gross underrepresentation of Sephardic Jewry in Israeli high school history textbooks,. Every Israeli prime minister has been Ashkenazi, although Sephardim and Mizrahim have attained the (ceremonial) presidency and other high positions. The student bodies of Israel's universities remain overwhelmingly European in origin, despite the fact that roughly half the country's population is non-European. And the tent cities of the 1950s morphed into so-called "development towns". Scattered over border areas of the Negev Desert and the Galilee, far from the bright lights of Israel's major cities, most of these towns never had the critical mass or ingredients to succeed as places to live, and they continue to suffer from high unemployment, inferior schools, and chronic brain drain.
While the Israeli Black Panthers no longer exist, the
Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow CoalitionThe Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition is a social justice organization among Mizrahi Jews in Israel....
and many other NGOs carry on the struggle for equal access and opportunity in housing, education, and employment for the country's underprivileged populace – still largely composed of Sephardim and Mizrahim, joined now by newer immigrants from Ethiopia and the Caucasus Mountains.
IntermarriageExogamy is a social arrangement where marriage is allowed only outside of a social group. The social groups define the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. In social studies, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects:...
of all these regathered Jewish ethnic groups was initially uncommon, due in part to distances of each group's settlement in Israel, and cultural and/or "racial" biases. In recent generations, however, the barriers were lowered by state sponsored assimilation of all the Jewish ethnic groups into a common
SabraSabra is a term used to describe a Jew born in Israeli territory; the term is also usually inclusive of Jews born during the period of the establishment of the state of Israel. The word "sabra" is Arabic and Hebrew. Immigrants to Palestine began using it in the early 1930s, according to the The...
(native-born Israeli) identity which facilitated extensive "mixed-marriages".
Statistics
The ethnic division of The Jewish population of Israel (including non Halackic Russians) as of 2008 is as follows.
Ethnic Makeup of Jewish Population of Israel{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}
| TOTAL |
5,818,000 |
100% |
Mizrahi JewsMizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus...
and Sephardic Jews |
2,921,000 |
50.2% |
| Morocco |
800,000 |
15.2% |
| Iraq |
404,000 |
7.7% |
| Yemen |
295,000 |
4.9% |
| Iran |
236,000 |
4.0% |
| Algeria/Tunisia |
224,000 |
3.8% |
| Other Asia |
150,000 |
2.5% |
| Turkey |
147,000 |
2.5% |
| Libya |
136,000 |
2.3% |
| Egypt |
112,000 |
1.9% |
| Other Asia |
200,000 |
1.7% |
| India/Pakistan |
76,000 |
1.3% |
| Latin America |
25,000 |
0.04% |
| Other Africa (Not South Africa) |
3,000 |
0.05% |
Beta IsraelBeta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...
(Ethiopia) |
130,000 |
2.2% |
| Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
|
2,767,000 |
47.5% |
| Russia |
1,018,000 |
20.9% |
| Poland |
400,000 |
8.3% |
| Romania |
351,000 |
7.6% |
| Other Europe |
168,000 |
3.7% |
| North America (Including 4,000 African American Black Hebrews) |
165,000 |
2.8% |
| Germany/Austria |
160,000 |
2.7% |
| Latin America |
82,000 |
1.4% |
| Bulgaria/Greece |
97,000 |
1.9% |
| Hungary |
63,000 |
1.3% |
| Czechoslovakia |
60,000 |
1.2% |
| South Africa |
20,000 |
0.4% |
The errors occurring due to these calculations were:
- There was no distinction made between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. (If the Sephardim, Mountain Jews and other non-Ashkenazi groups are included in Mizrachim, then Mizrachim will outnumber Ashkenazim by a margin of 52 to 48).
- Many Sephardim from Turkey were counted as Mizrachim.
- Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews and Bukharan Jews who together constitute ~15% of FSU Jews counted as Ashkenazim until 1996 (until 1996, Central Asia and the Caucasian Republics were counted as part of Europe. After 1996, from 1997 onwards they were counted as part of Asia).
- The Harbin Jews (~1,000) from China counted as Mizrachim, although they were Russian speaking Ashkenazim.
- After 1996, Russian speaking Ashkenazim from Kazakhstan, Kyrghizia and Armenia counted as Mizrachim.
- Close to 20,000 South African Jews were classified as Mizrachim, although almost all of them are Ashkenazim (Lithuanian, English and Afrikaans
Afrikaner-Jews or Boere-Jode as they are sometimes known, are an off-shoot of Afrikanerdom and Judaism. At the beginning of the 19th century, when greater freedom of religious practice was introduced in South Africa, small numbers of Ashkenazi Jews arrived from Britain and Germany. They established...
speaking).
- A few hundred Black Hebrews from the United States were classified as Ashkenazim.
- All Jews from Latin America were classified as Ashkenazim, although significant numbers are Sephardim (15–20% in Argentina and Mexico, 20%+ in Brazil, similar percentages in other countries). Close to three fifths of the Latin American Jews in Israel are Argentine, with one tenth each from Uruguay and Brazil.
- 86,000 Bulgarian/Greek Jews are classified as Ashkenazim, although the majority are Sephardim/Romaniotes.
- Jews whose Jewishness was not recognized were not counted; almost all of them were Ashkenazim (~275,000 in 2007).
See also
- Jews by country
This article deals with the practice of Judaism and the living arrangement of Jews in the listed countries.-Judaism by country:-See also:* Who is a Jew?* Jewish ethnic divisions* Ashkenazi Jews* Sephardi Jews* Mizrahi Jews...
- History of the Jews
- Jews and Judaism in the African diaspora
- Lost Tribes of Israel
- Judaism by country