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Welcome to 10 Minute TopicsThis week’s topic is: Ashkenazim Jews
The Ashkenazim Jews are Jews and their descendents who lived in communities along the RhineRiver in western Germany and northern France. The term Ashkenazi is a medieval term thatspecifically refers to these Jewish communities. These communities later spread into Lithuaniaand Poland and then into the wider world. Ashkenazim are identified primarily with German-Jewish customs.
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Many Ashkenazim migrated – mostly eastward – forming communities in areas includingHungary, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Eastern Europe between the tenth and nineteenthcenturies. Their lingua franca was Yiddish – a German-Jewish language that developed inmedieval times. Some also spoke a Judeo-French or Judeo-Czech language. The Ashkenazimdeveloped a distinctive culture and liturgy that was influenced to varying degrees by their interactions with peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
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In the eleventh century, Ashkenazim comprised only three-percent of the world’s Jewish population but by 1931, they accounted to ninety-two-percent and today make up about eighty- percent of the worldwide Jewish population.
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The majority of Jews who migrated from Europe toother continents in the past two centuries have been Ashkenazim. This is especially true inAmerica where most of the five million Jews are Ashkenazim.
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After the Roman Empire destroyed the Second Beit HaMikdash (Temple) and Jerusalem in 70CE and completed the takeover of Israel after the Bar-Kochba rebellion in 132-135 CE, Jewscontinued to be a majority of the population in the area known as Palestine for several hundredyears. The Romans no longer recognized the authority of the Sanhedrin or any other Jewishruling body and the Jews themselves were prohibited from living in Jerusalem.
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The Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until 212 when they were granted citizenship byEmperor Caracalla. The Jews were still required to pay a poll tax until Emperor Julian cancelledthis tax in 363. Jews were free to form cultural and religious networks and enter into variousoccupations. After Christianity became the official religion of Rome and Constantinople in 380,Jews became increasingly marginalized and persecuted. Throughout this period and into theMiddle Ages some Jews assimilated into the Greek and Latin cultures – mostly throughconversion to Christianity.
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When the Jews arrived in northern France and the Rhineland in the early fourth century they brought with them both Rabbinic Judaism and the Babylonian Talmud along with the culture andreligious practices of their families and communities. Yiddish is a Judeo-German language thatdeveloped from Middle High German with influences from Hebrew and Aramaic. European
 
Jews came to be called Ashkenazim – from Ashkenaz, the Medieval Hebrew name for Germany – because the main centers of Jewish learning were located in Germany.
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In the late Roman Empire, Jews were known to have lived in Cologne and Trier as well as thearea we now know as France. King Dagobert I of the Franks expelled the Ashkenazim from hisMerovingian kingdom in 629. The Ashkenazim in the former Roman territories came face-to-face with new challenges as harsher anti-Jewish Church rulings were enforced.
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After 800, with Charlemagne’s unification of former Frankish lands with northern Italy andRome, there was a brief period of stability that created opportunities for Ashkenazim merchantsto settle once again north of the Alps. Charlemagne granted the Ashkenazim freedoms similar tothose once enjoyed under the Roman Empire and they took on occupations primarily in financeand commerce. By the early tenth century, Ashkenazim were well-established in northern Europeand followed the Norman Conquest into England in 1066. From this time forward, there is awell-documented record of Jewish life in northern Europe. By the eleventh century, when Rashiwrote his commentaries, Ashkenazim had emerged as interpreters and commentators on theTorah and Talmud.
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With the onset of the Crusades as well as the expulsion from England in 1290, France in 1394,and parts of Germany in the 1400s Jewish migration moved eastward into Russia, Lithuania, andPoland. Jewish economic activity was focused mainly on trade, financial services, and businessmanagement.
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By the sixteenth century, the Ashkenazim communities in Poland were the largestJewish communities in the Diaspora.
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This area of Europe would remain the center of theAshkenazim until the Shoah (Holocaust). The Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe lived almostexclusively in shtetles (small towns with large Jewish populations).
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Ashkenazim developed Chasidic movements as well as major Jewish academic centers acrossRussia, Lithuania, and Poland. Massive westward migrations occurred during the nineteenth- andtwentieth-centuries due to pogroms and economic opportunities in other parts of the world.Ashkenazim have made up the majority of the American Jewish community since 1750.
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Of theestimated 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of World War II, the majority wereAshkenazim. Many of those who survived the Shoah (Holocaust) emigrated to Israel, America,Australia, Argentina, and Canada after the war.
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Today, Ashkenazim constitute the largest group of Jews in the Diaspora and within Israel. Theyhave played a prominent role in the politics, economics, and media of Israel since its inception.Ashkenazim are obliged to follow the authority of the Chief Ashkenazi rabbi in halachic (Jewishlegal) matters.
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Ashkenazim have a noted history of achievement in western societies. Ashkenazim have won alarge number of Nobel awards.
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During the twentieth century, Ashkenazim made up about three- percent of American society but won twenty-seven-percent of the Nobel prizes awarded toAmericans in science and twenty-five-percent of those awarded in computer science.
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