What does Ashkenazi Jewish mean to you?
January 3, 2022 11:37 AM   Subscribe

When someone mentions to you that their background is Ashkenazi Jewish, what associations does this activate in your mind? What would you understand or assume based on them or their ancestors being Ashkenazi Jews? What might someone expect the other person to understand by mentioning this?
posted by d288478 to Society & Culture (36 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: As someone of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, I take the term to mean my ancestors come from northern/eastern Europe, and I have a propensity toward fair skin and blue eyes, as opposed to Sephardic Jews who hail from the Middle East and tend toward darker/olive skin and brown eyes.
posted by DrGail at 11:43 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]


As an Ashkenazi Jew myself, I would assume a few things:
- The person is not Orthodox or Haredi. If they were, you could tell just by looking at them. They may attend shul on holidays, or they may not be observant at all.
- Their background is from Eastern Europe, likely from the vicinity of Russia, Germany, or Poland. Their ancestors were likely driven out of their homeland by antisemitism.
- They have strong opinions about where to get the best bagels.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:48 AM on January 3, 2022 [26 favorites]


I am of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and associate Ashkenazi Jewish backgrounds with ancestry from northern and eastern Europe, including white/fair skin and blue/ green eyes. If people ask me about it, they're generally curious about one or more of the following: whether my family was affected by the Holocaust; BRCA gene mutations; political Zionism. Sometimes people ask about specific Ashkenazi Jewish traditions such as food (gefilte fish, cholent).
posted by wicked_sassy at 11:49 AM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]


Best answer: I assume very little about them other than knowing the geographic location of their ancestors, and that they have enough interest in ancestry and/or cultural/religious heritage to be aware of that and interested in sharing it. I don't assume it means anything in particular about their own personal beliefs or practices, absent further context.

I'm also aware this person might be more likely to have certain medical diagnoses or be a carrier for them, but absent some very specific context for the conversation I wouldn't assume they actually do.

(I am of Jewish descent. I don't know what Jewish background, specifically; information on my heritage is largely lost to me. So there would also be an aspect of my response that is "slight jealousy that this person gets to know this about themselves; concern/anxiety that I don't know as much as I should as a person with my ancestry about what I am supposed to glean from this information." That's very specific to my personal situation but on the off chance it's useful to you, since you don't say why you're asking, there it is.)
posted by Stacey at 11:57 AM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]


I feel a bit bad for holding these stereotypes, but the very first thing I think of when I hear "Ashkenazi" is "stodgy food with a lot of pickles". (The second thing I think is, "great music".) (I am Jewish, but not Ashkenazi).

One thing is that - as with many cultures - the majority will come to define the group - in the case of Ashkenazi culture, that would be the eastern European version, as opposed to other central European Jewish traditions. For example, my partner is of German-Jewish heritage, and does not identify as Ashkenazi (though they followed the Ashkenazi rite). Instead, he identifies his family as "Yekkes" - their language was German, not Yiddish, and their food and cultural ways were so very different from the eastern European Jewish culture that most people associate with "Ashkenazi". (It feels weird to be using the past tense, but I don't know anything about contemporary German Jewish culture - and the culture of his assimilated, liberal German-Jewish ancestors was completely destroyed).

So my other gross stereotypes are that Yekkes are punctual and uptight, while Ashkenazim are loud and operate on "Jewish time" (aka don't arrive at shul on time, you'll have to wait for too long for Kiddush). And yes, they probably have strong opinions on bagels.

/edits for spelling - I managed several different versions of "Ashkenazi"
posted by jb at 12:00 PM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]


I think it’s ok to eat beans during Passover; no dates in my charoset (a pity); and words are pronounced slightly differently (charoset versus charosis, for example).
posted by Melismata at 12:00 PM on January 3, 2022


Another one for me is the Yiddish language and the old Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew ("shabbos," not "shabbat," etc). Neither of those is a pan-Ashkenazi thing — half my family came to the US speaking Dutch, not Yiddish, see jb's point above — but they're both things that make me think "Ashkenazi" vs just "Jewish."

(I'm of American Ashkenazi ancestry but not observant and not "culturally Jewish" in a big way.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:01 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


I am not of Jewish descent, but a few members of my family have married Ashkenazi Jewish women. When I hear the term, I think of someone with Eastern European heritage. I also think of increased risk of some diseases, but wouldn't offhand remember which ones.
posted by FencingGal at 12:02 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: as an Ashkenazi Jew who moves mostly in Jewish circles I would assume nothing about them other than that their immediately-known ancestry is from what we think of as Europe. It could be south, including the Balkans; the Romanian and Bulgarian Jews I know identify as Ashekenazi. It could be central (Germany, Austria.) It could be eastern (Russia, Poland, etc.) It could be as far west as France. There were Ashkenazi congregations in Italy and in England too.

It would not predict coloring (lots of dark complected Russian Jews), politics, and certainly not level of observance, which contrary to a statement above is not always obvious from mode of dress.

In the USA, due to demographic patterns of immigration from the turn of the century, it is more likely they are descended from Eastern European Jews than other communities. But I wouldn't assume.

That said, my knowledge happens to be deeper and broader than most American Jews', and there certainly are shallow stereotypes that less knowledgeable people might assume.
posted by fingersandtoes at 12:05 PM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]


I have Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. I agree that bagel opinions, and a tradition of foods and perhaps holidays, are the main cultural markers I would expect. I was raised in a mixed faith household and don't identify as religiously/culturally Jewish.

My immediate family is from Eastern Europe and emigrated before the Holocaust. I would assume that Ashkenazi Jewish ancestors survived persecution, and that their descendants may have inherited generational trauma, but I wouldn't assume they have a Holocaust story.

Here in the US, I'd tend to assume they have roots in the Northeast US, since that's where my family's from.

(FWIW, my family tends to have darker skin, hair, and eyes, though my grandmother allegedly had red hair that she dyed all her life.)
posted by toastedcheese at 12:06 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


Best answer: The concept of "ashkenormativity" might also be useful here. A lot of what Americans think of as generically baseline Jewish, either physically, culturally, or religiously, is Ashkenazi stuff that other branches of the diaspora might or might not share. And this is also true to some extent in other countries.

So for a lot of people, their impression of Ashkenazi Jews and their impression of Jews in general are basically identical.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:13 PM on January 3, 2022 [39 favorites]


I came here to type nebulawind's answer, and they said it better than I could have.
posted by wattle at 12:28 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


(I'm American from an interfaith family, that includes Ashkenazi Jews.)

I agree with all those saying that I'd assume nothing (other than that it's most likely someone in their family, at some point, spoke Yiddish), even where their family may be from - while sure, there was a lot of Jewish migration post-WWII, there were other earlier waves of migration. Moreover, even if most Ashkenazi Jews can trace their roots back eventually to somewhere in Eastern Europe, many currently identify much more closer to other countries (the US being the main one, but also Mexico, Argentina, Australia, France, England, etc.) In my case, my Jewish side comes from Russia/Poland, but I have no affinity to that part of the world and my ancestors all came over to the US at the turn of the century. Obviously some of the classic Jewish foods are influenced from that region (ex: blintzes), but I've never felt Russian or Polish.

I have had plenty of Jewish friends over the years, and I don't think anyone has ever identified themselves specifically as Ashkenazi (at least not in casual conversation). I think it's generally assumed in the US that Jews here are Ashkenazi unless they're Israeli or have a middle-eastern sounding last name.

As jb mentioned, there are some negative stereotypes about Ashkenazis held by some Sephardic Jews - when I was in Israel, I was told multiple times "Oh, but you look Sephardic!" which was intended as a compliment.
posted by coffeecat at 12:32 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I'm an American Jew, part Ashkenazi. I agree with both some of the stereotypes listed above, and also with the idea that at this point it means very little. My own personal #1 thought about Ashkenazi Jews nowadays is "Do you know about the BRCA gene?" and if the answer's no, I want to share what I know. (Because my bestie, of Ashkenazi descent, died of ovarian cancer and was BRCA+ without knowing it.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:05 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm an Ashkenazi-Sefardi mix (though it's about 90/10 at this point), and the only time I identify myself as Ashkenazi is in a medical context (there are a number of genetically-linked illnesses / mutations that sometimes your doctor needs to be aware to look for), or once in a while as a way to separate my experience / explanations of how we follow certain Jewish traditions from being considered The Way Things Are Done, because as others here have mentioned, "Ashkenormativity" is definitely a thing in the US and it's important to stay aware of it.

Lately, there's also been a lot of bias (and sometimes outright anti-semitism) about Ashkenazi Jews, especially with reference to Israel, as somehow being more white and therefore less deserving of consideration - or more deserving of condemnation - than Sefardi Jews. Within the Jewish community and especially in Israel, some of this comes from Sefardi and Mizrachi Jews themselves (who are still the majority population there).

It's a bit inside baseball, but you might find this interesting: Is "Ashki" a nickname or a slur?
posted by Mchelly at 1:15 PM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]


As someone who is not Jewish but has dated several people in the US who described themselves this way (including one long-term relationship where I spent lots of time with a big extended family), I'd probably assume that someone who specifically uses the phrase in the US is a third or forth generation immigrant from a cosmopolitan east coast city and likely to be pretty secular or nearly so. Calling out "Ashkenazi," rather than something more specific, suggests a secular understanding of history, at least to me. I have no idea if that's accurate, misleading, or offensive. I'm sure it's different in other places. I suspect others would disagree even in the places I live.
posted by eotvos at 1:58 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


I tend to assume Ashkenazi Jews are more or less white presenting, immigrated away from Europe between 1800 and the 1940s, and have generally been pressed into education and professions. I assume Sephardic Jews are brown presenting, immigrated after the 1960s or so, and are very family-oriented. In my own experience, I grew up with many Ashkenazi families in the Eastern US and know some Sephardim on the West Coast.

There's an excellent Mexican film from 1993 called Novia que te vea (in English: Like a Bride) that centers around two young girls in Mexico City - both Jewish, one Ashkenazi, one Sephardic - in the late 60s. The great thing is that it includes sections in Ladino.
posted by vunder at 2:28 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


97% Ashkenazi Jew here. I would assume they have at least a vague familiarity with some Yiddish words, and that they probably have a mental list of “Who’s a Jew” in the world of actors and musicians. And that even if they don’t particularly like Adam Sandler, they still know all the words to the Hanukkah song.
posted by MexicanYenta at 3:24 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I would assume they've put enough thinking into their Jewish identity and heritage to pin down what kind they are, so it is or was at least moderately important to them.
posted by one for the books at 3:25 PM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]


I grew up in (and now live in) a very Jewish community in the United States, and when someone says to me, "Well, we're Ashkenazi," they're usually communicating to me a bunch of local information such as which synagogue they attend, which deli they prefer, which kosher bakery is their go-to for shiva platters. They might be communicating something about their parents' or grandparents' backgrounds, or about their preferred holiday traditions. The very large majority of the local community is Ashkenazi; if someone tells me they're Sephardic or Mizrahi, I know exactly which synagogue they attend, and also we can play a quick game of "oh hey, do you know X?" because the local community is small enough that most people will know each other.

I ... actually can't think of a context someone has said it to me outside of those local community interactions, unless it was in an academic setting (as I studied religion). But locally most people assume that I will assume they're Ashkenazi, and don't feel the need to specify, unless for some reason we're specifically discussing food, holiday traditions, a Yiddish word that's new to me, or something like that.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:11 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]


Best answer: As someone with Ashkenazi heritage, and this a bit esoteric, I would think/expect that we have a common cultural background and knowledge, that if I went over to their house on a Jewish holiday the rituals would be similar to my own family’s. Specifically:

-their early ancestors who cama to the US likely spoke fluent Yiddish, the present generations use/understand colloquial Yiddishisms
-they pronounce certain words the same way as me (IE Shabbos vs Shabbat)
-if they identify as ashkenazi over say, telling me they are orthodox, I perhaps incorrectly am going to assume they are Reform and more culturally than religiously Jewish.
-this is problematic, but I would expect them to be comfortably middle/upper middle class.
-If breaking fast with them at Yom Kippur or sitting Shiva, I expect bagels with cream cheese, lox, whitefish, and all the fixings to be served.
-a certain amount of pride in their Jewish heritage and in Jewish celebrities/people of note. More of an older generation thing, but I can hear my grandmother interjecting “and he’s Jewish!” if like, someone said they were voting for Bernie Sanders.
-I would expect them to have some kind of strong feelings about Israel, and if it’s someone Gen X or younger, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were deeply embarrassed to be associated with it and uninterested in visiting (like me and a lot of the Jewish progressives I know). This is opposite how I’d feel, again perhaps incorrectly, if someone identified themselves to me as Orthodox or Conservative upon meeting.

Thanks for the question; made me nostalgic for family gatherings and the elders in my family.
posted by nancynickerson at 4:20 PM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]


This is probably a very North American, and perhaps partly Israeli thing.

Which doesn't mean that it doesn't play a role in other countries.
In this country, the first Jews were Sephardic, and those families are the "good" families, those everyone else aspired to be part of. Everyone of Jewish origin here knows who those families are. It was only while reading the comments here I understood there might be a different perspective. This might be a reason I have never ever heard a person presenting themself as Ashkenazi. Even 150 (-ish) years after my great-great-great grandfather immigrated from Lithuania, there was a huge pride in my family when my brother married a woman from one of those fine old Sephardic families. We are all atheists except those who have chosen to be Christian for some obscure reason, and our only observance of any rules or traditions was that my grandfather semi-regularly explained at dinner why it was OK to eat pork and shellfish in the north. I skipped that tradition of explaining food. But my kids have Jewish names.

One thing though: I am a total foodie, and after I lived in the US for a while, I became curious about how it could be that my atheist American-Jewish friends were more observant about food than my observant Danish-Jewish friends, and I discovered that Danish Jews were flexing the rules already at about 1900 when almost no-one was atheist. My granddad was probably echoing an argument his grandmother, a professed orthodox recipe writer, was promoting. If you ever go to Tivoli in Copenhagen, the most famous restaurant there is Nimb. Madame Nimb was a Jewish chef and entrepreneur who defined Danish cuisine for generations. She did not keep kosher. I think my grandfather's grandmother and Madame Louise Nimb were both Sephardic, and I wonder if the Marrano tradition had something to say in their embrace of Northern produce. But really, I don't know.

Also, thanks for posting this. It may be a lead to a puzzle I have been wondering about for ages. I don't really know how to find out, but now I have one more stepping stone.
posted by mumimor at 4:49 PM on January 3, 2022 [12 favorites]


- They have strong opinions about where to get the best bagels.

This is 100% accurate and wholly true for the Ashkenazi Jewish part of my extended family. See also: babka.
posted by thivaia at 4:55 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


The concept of "ashkenormativity" might also be useful here. A lot of what Americans think of as generically baseline Jewish, either physically, culturally, or religiously, is Ashkenazi stuff that other branches of the diaspora might or might not share. And this is also true to some extent in other countries.

Agree, for this US perspective. My mother's family is a "mixed" Jewish family with one grandparent Ashkenazi and one grandparent Sephardic. I did not learn this specific bit of family trivia until I read about it in Wikipedia (where people are really all over not just whether people are Jewish but also what kind of Jewish they are). My subjective perspective is a lot of what people have said above, Ashkenazi is what a lot of people in the US think of as Jewish and as mumimor says above, it can be the "unmarked" form of Judaism as opposed to Mizrahim or Sephardim. So I think of Jewish delis and lots of delicious breads.
posted by jessamyn at 7:04 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I think of it as a fairly culturally homogenous group of Jews who emigrated from Russia, Poland, Belarus - maybe Germany, in the late 19th through mid 20th century, looking for opportunity and to flee anti-Semitism and in many cases to flee restrictive fundamentalist village life. I know my mental definition is not technically accurate, but it's how I think of the term. (This definition happens to precisely describe my ancestors.)
posted by latkes at 7:24 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


Jews from Eastern Europe. Knowledge of Zabar's (if you are in the US, but not necessarily in NYC). Debate on best bagel place (aside from Zabar's). Appreciation of debate (including and aside from debates on bagel places). Really stinky foods (smoked fish and meats, raw onions, broiling hot black coffee). Deep appreciation of education, learning and reading. Bias/preference towards men, male children and marrying men (if you are a woman); (no offense intended with this statement, this is just what I think of - and have experienced). And Deafness.
posted by Toddles at 8:46 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm of Ashkenazi heritage, and the first thing that came to mind for me was that my parents had to be tested for Tay-Sachs before they got married because it was possible their kids could have it due to their ethnic background.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 9:43 PM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]


As someone who is not Jewish, and did not grow up in a town with a large Jewish population, I don't have that many associations. I'd expect a lot of people in my town don't even know what the word means. I'm from a college town in the Midwestern US, in an area where most people are protestant Christians.

I had a Jewish friend growing up, but, like, one--how her family related to a larger Jewish community never really came up on our play dates. I learned the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardic through reading, rather than through cultural osmosis or whatever. And I learned it through reading because I specifically developed an interest in learning about different religions growing up.

It wasn't actually until I was older that I realized a lot of "East Coast" stereotypes in media were actually specifically Jewish East Coast stereotypes. I had a Jewish friend in graduate school who was amused and shocked when I said I didn't know a mutual acquaintance was Jewish; to her, it was obvious, but to me it really wasn't.

So to me, "Ashkenazi" is really a word that I know intellectually, rather than one that brings up a lot of cultural associations and experiences.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:13 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]


I am a Chinese-American woman raised in Southern CT (so some of my friends who Jewish, were Sephardic and Mizrahi, but most of them were Ashkenazi). My husband is Ashkenazi and the first time it was relevant was at the OBGYN office, where I saw that I could decline basically all the genetic testing.

I am told that Chabad is very ashkenormative.

I gleaned from my conversational Hebrew class that there are more -ei- diphthongs in Ashkenazi pronunciations.

Aside from that? Schmaltz, and the concert pianist, Vladimir Ashkenazy.
posted by batter_my_heart at 10:20 PM on January 3, 2022


"Ashkenormativity" is a great term, and I need to steal it; certainly a lot of the baseline of what people think of when they envision "Jews" in America, culturally and ethnically, is Ashkenazim. With that in mind, anyone who describes themselves as "Ashkenazi" instead of simply "Jewish" in America, I would assume, does so for one of two reasons: (a) they took a DNA test and incorporated the additional term into their self-description, or (b) they interact in circles where the specifier is useful or necessary. Most American Ashkenazi Jews don't by default specify their subculture when talking about themselves, because it's so normalized, and because outside of cosmopolitan circles which are reasonably aware of Jewish culture, it's just a word that most people don't understand, and including the word "Ashkenazi" in a lot of circumstances simply induces the listener to ask a followup question which is pretty tedious unless they're actually eager to explain the cultural breadth of Judaism (which they might be).
posted by jackbishop at 8:22 AM on January 4, 2022 [3 favorites]


I've never met anyone in the UK who has actively described their background as Ashkenazi, although I imagine that all of the Jewish people I know are Ashkenazi. I don't think it would be a well known term here among non-Jews. So I would either assume that their specific heritage (which I would guess to be eastern or central European) was important to them, or that they came from somewhere where the distinctions between Jewish communities are more significant than where I live. I would probably guess that they are very knowledgeable about one or more aspects of modern Jewish life (eg they may hold strong views on Israel, or be very interested in Jewish cooking, or have a great understanding of halacha or something).

If they are living in the UK, I would assume that their ancestors moved here before 1950 and they have family in North London and/or Essex. I'd be about 50:50 on whether their close family was part of the Holocaust or moved here before 1939, but that is not a topic I would ever voluntarily bring up. I also wouldn't bring up the Labour party or the state of Israel. If I remembered and it was near that time of year, I might ask them whether they had any Passover plans as a small talk topic.
posted by plonkee at 8:58 AM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


In this country, the first Jews were Sephardic, and those families are the "good" families, those everyone else aspired to be part of.

More or less true of the US, once upon a time.

The Grandees: The Story of America's Sephardic Elite
and its companion volume, The Rest of Us: The Rise of America’s Eastern European Jews (both by Stephen Birmingham).

But as illustrated by all the comments above, things are more complex now.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:42 AM on January 4, 2022 [3 favorites]


Adding to the "I wouldn't assume much, other than their ancestors were Jews from certain parts of Europe" crowd here. I'm of part Ashkenazi heritage; my great-great grandparents were driven out of Lithuania in the early 1900s and settled in NYC like a lot of Jewish Americans at the time.

That said, I actually didn't even know any of this until after my grandfather died when I was 18, because he'd been basically conditioned to stealth mode by *his* parents (because antisemitism, of course). Other Ashkenazi-sourced folks I know have traditions they hold to (mainly surrounding food) but my family never did any of that, and honestly I feel a bit cheated because there IS quite a rich cultural history there that I didn't get to grow up with (again, because antisemitism).
posted by aecorwin at 12:45 PM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I'm 99.9% Ashkenazi, and the only time I've used it about myself is in relation to genetic testing. Like others have said BRCA 1/2 mutations are much more common in Ashkenazi Jews as compared to the general population and there are other disorders such as Tay Sachs that are also more prevalent among Ashkenazim. Many people I know do Dor Yeshorim (a genetic compatibility panel) before dating to make sure they are not both carriers of these diseases / syndromes.
posted by doublenelson at 1:13 PM on January 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


Honestly I’d assume that they were kinda self-important about identity politics and labels, and that they’re neurotic. Non-woke Jews just say they’re Jewish and don’t specify Ashki, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and all the Jews I know (me included) are neurotic as hell.
posted by Summers at 4:42 PM on January 4, 2022


Best answer: I started identifying as Ashkenazi Jewish when I got older and started filling out a lot of medical forms that asked me about race/ethnicity. I am white-presenting, but I figured that in terms of medical care, my Ashkenazi ancestry is most significant.

Once I started doing that, I also started using it on other forms that ask for race/ethnicity, because then I don't have to think about it every time and try to guess exactly what everybody is getting at with every single form.

If it comes up in conversation, it's usually because I want the other person to know that even though I'm talking about my parents' growing up in Hungary, I may not be part of or represent what someone assumes to be the typical Hungarian experience/community/nationality. Ashkenazi Jewish captures that my family (afaik) had been in the general European migration/exile circuit for a while and Hungary was the most recent stop/identification before North America, as opposed to a long term ethno-nationalist identification. It's a much less inaccurate answer to "where are you/where is your family from" than just saying Hungary.

I might also use it because there's a lot of discussion over what being Jewish is, and whether it's a racial/ethnic category or not. It's a complicated and interesting conversation with all kinds of facets and implications, and I'm honestly not sure where I come down on it. But I'm much more comfortable identifying Ashkenazi Jewish as an ethnic/racial category because of its (relative) homogeneity. So in a situation where I might feel like identifying as ethnically Jewish, I would now default to just say Ashkenazi Jewish and sidestep that whole complicated can of worms.

It might also come up in conversations about religious practices. Although I personally am not very observant, the traditions I don't follow are Ashkenazi, and the liturgy/nuscach I know is Ashkenazi.
posted by Salamandrous at 4:40 PM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]


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