Jewish ethnic divisions
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The most commonly used terms to describe ethnic divisions among Jews presently are: Ashkenazi (meaning "German" in Hebrew, denoting the Central European base of Jewry); and Sephardi (meaning "Spanish" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish and North African location). They refer to both religious and ethnic divisions. (Some scholars hold that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of those who originally followed the Palestinian Jewish religious tradition, and Sephardic Jews are descendants of those who originally followed the Babylonian religious tradition.)
Jews have historically been divided into four major ethnic groups:
- Ashkenazim are Jews from Germany or Eastern Europe who later migrated elsewhere.
- Sephardim are Jews from Spain or Portugal. They were expelled in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella and migrated to North Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America, Netherlands, and other parts of Europe.
- Oriental or "Mizrahi" Jews (edut hamizrach in Hebrew) are Jews from the Middle East with some spreading to Central Asia and South Asia). (Note: In modern common usage, most Oriental Jews are now referred to as Sephardic, as the religious rites of Oriental and Sephardic Jews are similar.)
- Yemenite Jews are Oriental Jews whose geographical and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community allowed them to develop a liturgy and set of practices sufficiently distinct from other Oriental Jewish groups so as to be recognized as a different group.
Of these communities, the largest by far are the Ashkenazim, comprising approximately 70 percent of the Jewish total, with Oriental Jews comprising most of the remainder. Many Sephardim live in France (the majority of French Jews are Sephardic), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (small numbers), and the United States, but most are in Israel (about 50 percent of Israelis), where they have created their own large ethnic political party called Shas guided by rabbis such as Ovadia Yosef. (Note that not all Sephardim belong to or support Shas.)
Note: In Israel, Jews with origins in Western (Christian) countries are called Ashkenazi though many are not. The Jews of Italy are Bené Roma; the Georgian are Gruzim; the Greek are Romaniotes; and many of the Dutch, Bulgarian, and Latin American are Sephardic. These groups claim distinct cultures and histories.
Those with origins in Muslim and Arab lands are commonly called Sephardi though many are not. The Jews of Iran and Iraq are Mizrahi and the Yemenite and Omani are Temani. None of these groups include the Beta Israel of Ethiopia who were brought to Israel during Operation Solomon and Operation Moses, as well as other groups.
Smaller groups
These groups are described in terms of their historic geography; significant numbers of these Jews live today in Israel.
- Gruzim are Georgian-speaking Jews from Georgia in the Caucasus.
- Juhurim are mountain Jews mainly from Daghestan in the eastern Caucasus.
- Italkim or Bené Roma are the Jews of Italy
- Bene Israel are the Jews of Mumbai, India.
- Cochin Jews are also Indian Jews.
- Romaniotes are Greek-speaking Jews from the Balkans that lived there from the Hellenistic era until today.
- Ethiopian Jews and various other small African Jewish populations are also found.
- Bukharan Jews are Jews from Central Asia. They get their name from the Uzbek city of Bukhara, which once had a large community.
- Baghdadi Jews [1] Those Jews came from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Arab countries and settled in India in 18th Century.
- Bnei Menashe. A group of Jews living in Manipur and Mizoram in northeastern India, claiming descent from the dispersed Biblical Tribe of Menasseh.
- Krymchaks and Karaim are Turkic-speaking Jews of the Crimea and Eastern Europe. The Krymchaks practice rabbinical Judaism, while the Karaim are Karaites. 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.
- Chinese Jews: most prominent were the Kaifeng Jews, an ancient Jewish community in China, descended from merchants living in China from at least the era of the Tang dynasty. Today functionally extinct, yet descendants are beginning to explore and reclaim their heritage.
These smaller groups number in the thousands or tens of thousands, with the Gruzim being most numerous at about 100,000. Many members of these groups have now emigrated from their traditional homelands, largely to Israel. For example, only about 10 percent of the Gruzim remain in Georgia.