Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora. The group traces its origins to early medieval Germany, originating from the Jewish communities who lived in the 10th century in the Rhineland valley and in neighbouring France before gradually migrating eastward following the Crusades. Facing persecution in Western Europe, particularly following the Black Death in the 14th century, the bulk of the Ashkenazi Jews then migrated to the Kingdom of Poland, at the encouragement of Casimir III the Great and his successors, making Poland the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust.
Ashkenazim adapted their traditions to Europe, and underwent a transformation in their interpretation of Judaism. They traditionally follow the German rite synagogue ritual and until the Holocaust primarily spoke Yiddish, an offshoot of Middle High German written in a variety of the Hebrew script, with significant Hebrew, Aramaic and Slavic influence. From the late 18th century onwards, Ashkenazi communities underwent significant religious and cultural transformations, under the influence of the Haskalah and the struggle for Jewish emancipation in European states that restricted their rights. Among other things, Maskilim advocated the adoption of national languages instead of Yiddish, as well as increased study and usage of Hebrew, in order to modernize Jewish religious practice and identity. The language, whose usage until then had been primarily liturgical and clerical, was progressively revived as a common language starting from the 19th century, fueled by these aspirations of both religious and national revival. The Yiddish language progressively declined in prestige, in favor of national languages and Hebrew, being stigmatized by assimilationists and later also Zionists, though it remained spoken by over 11 million people worldwide prior to the Holocaust.
Starting from the 19th century, millions of Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to the United States, which now houses the largest Ashkenazi community in the world. Throughout the centuries, Ashkenazim made significant contributions to Western philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, music, and science. As a proportion of the world Jewish population, Ashkenazim were estimated to be 3% in the 11th century, rising to 92% in 1930 near the population's peak. The Ashkenazi population was significantly diminished by the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II, which killed around six million Jews, affecting practically every European Jewish family. In 1933, prior to World War II, the estimated worldwide Jewish population was 15.3 million. Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio D. Pergola implied that Ashkenazim comprised 65–70% of Jews worldwide in 2000, while other estimates suggest more than 75%., the population was estimated to be between 10 million and 11.2 million.
Etymology
The name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Japhet, son of Noah, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations. The name of Gomer has often been linked to the Cimmerians.The Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from Assyrian Aškūza, a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates; the name Aškūza is identified with the Scythians. The intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a vav vav | with a nun Nun |.
In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni and Ararat, called on by God to resist Babylon. In Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Berechiah mentions Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah as German tribes or as German lands. Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia, viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes, as early as a 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius.
In the 10th-century History of Armenia of Yovhannes Drasxanakertc'i, Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia, as it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene, Khazaria, Crimea and areas to the east. His contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with the Saquliba or Slavic territories, and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe. In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical "Ashkenaz" with Khazaria.
Sometime in the Early Medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term. Conforming to the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was denominated Sefarad, France was called Tsarefat, and Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan. By the start of the high medieval period, Hai Gaon refers to questions that had been addressed to him from Ashkenaz, by which he undoubtedly means Germany, and Talmudic commentators like Rashi began to use Ashkenaz/Eretz Ashkenaz to designate Germany, earlier known as Loter, where, especially in the Rhineland communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the most important Jewish communities arose. Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz to describe Yiddish, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to the Crusaders as Ashkenazim. During the 12th century, the word appears quite frequently. In the Mahzor Vitry, the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of the synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances. In the literature of the 13th century, references to the land and the language of Ashkenaz often occur. Examples include Solomon ben Aderet's Responsa ; the Responsa of Asher ben Jehiel ; his Halakot ; the work of his son Jacob ben Asher, Tur Orach Chayim ; the Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet. Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany and France.
In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern and western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany and Poland. Thus the prayer-book of Isaiah Horowitz, and many others, give the piyyutim according to the Minhag of Ashkenaz and Poland.
History
Like other Jewish ethnic groups, the Ashkenazim originate from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Ashkenazi Jews share a significant amount of ancestry with other Jewish populations and derive their ancestry mostly from populations in the Middle East, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe. Other than their origins in ancient Israel, the question of how Ashkenazi Jews came to exist as a distinct community is unknown, and has given rise to several theories.Early Jewish communities in Europe
Beginning in the fourth century BCE, Jewish colonies sprang up in southern Europe, including the Aegean Islands, Greece, and Italy. Jews left ancient Israel for a number of causes, including a number of push and pull factors. More Jews moved into these communities as a result of wars, persecution, unrest, and for opportunities in trade and commerce.Jews migrated to southern Europe from the Middle East voluntarily for opportunities in trade and commerce. Following Alexander the Great's conquests, Jews migrated to Greek settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean, spurred on by economic opportunities. Jewish economic migration to southern Europe is also believed to have occurred during the Roman period.
In 63 BCE, the Siege of Jerusalem saw the Roman Republic conquer Judea, and thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves. After gaining their freedom, they settled permanently in Rome as traders. It is likely that there was an additional influx of Jewish slaves taken to southern Europe by Roman forces after the capture of Jerusalem by the forces of Herod the Great with assistance from Roman forces in 37 BCE. It is known that Jewish war captives were sold into slavery after the suppression of a minor Jewish revolt in 53 BCE, and some were probably taken to southern Europe.
Regarding Jewish settlements founded in southern Europe during the Roman era, E. Mary Smallwood wrote that "no date or origin can be assigned to the numerous settlements eventually known in the west, and some may have been founded as a result of the dispersal of Palestinian Jews after the revolts of AD 66–70 and 132–135, but it is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BC, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce."
Jewish–Roman Wars
The first and second centuries CE saw a series of unsuccessful large-scale Jewish revolts against Rome. The Roman suppression of these revolts led to wide-scale destruction, a very high toll of life and enslavement. The First Jewish–Roman War resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba Revolt erupted. Judea's countryside was devastated, and many were killed, displaced or sold into slavery. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina, and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina. Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt.With their national aspirations crushed and widespread devastation in Judea, despondent Jews migrated out of Judea in the aftermath of both revolts, and many settled in southern Europe. In contrast to the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the movement was by no means a singular, centralized event, and a Jewish diaspora had already been established before.
During both of these rebellions, many Jews were captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, 97,000 Jews were sold as slaves in the aftermath of the first revolt. In one occasion, Vespasian reportedly ordered 6,000 Jewish prisoners of war from Galilee to work on the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece. Jewish slaves and their children eventually gained their freedom and joined local free Jewish communities.