Ashkenazi vs. Sephardic Jews: 5 Surprising Differences

In America, if someone is picturing a Jew, it’s almost always an Ashkenazi one. And that’s because of the roughly seven million Jews in America, only about half a million aren’t Ashkenazi. But that’s not true across the world. In Israel the majority of Jews are not Ashkenazi! And yet, most Americans don’t know the first thing about other types of Jews – specifically, Sephardic culture. So in no particular order, here are five surprising differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.

Before getting into the list - a quick review of who these two groups are. Ashkenazi Jews originally come from Germany, France and Eastern Europe while Sephardic Jews, originally were from Portugal and Spain, and later lived in all of these places. Notably, there’s a lot of overlap in who lived where, and not all Jews neatly fit into these two categories. Not by a long shot. Mizrachi Jews, for instance, are largely from the Middle East, and they share many customs with Sephardic Jews. So much so, that in Israel, many think of them as one group. And then there are Ethiopian Jews, Italkim and many others. But, in America, these are the two biggest groups of Jews. And living in these separate areas created many differences, beyond just the shade of the color of their skin.

Number One: The Food [Each Title Pops up & is read out loud]
Bagels? Matzah Ball Soup? Gefilte Fish? Kugel? All Ashkenazi. They come from countries where Ashkenazi Jews used to live and they’re still served in those countries, under different names. Think cold weather Eastern European fare. 

Adafina? Shakshuka? Mofletta? All Sephardic. Coming from warmer countries, they’re often more colorful and might actually be…[gasp]…spicy. In other words, both groups have taken on and adapted dishes from countries where they lived. 

There are foods that both groups eat, such variations of as Challah and Cholent, but even those can look quite different. And importantly, both groups have a long tradition of keeping Kosher, the Jewish dietary rules. But even within that, there are notable differences. On the holiday of Passover, for instance, while neither eat bread, Ashkenazi Jews also traditionally don’t eat kitniyot, which include all of these. It makes for very different dishes at the Seder.  It also means that on Passover, some Ashkenazi Jew aren’t able to eat at a Sephardic Jew's house, if both are traditionally observant in their own ways.

Jews can go their entire life without realizing there’s a whole other variety of Jewish recipes that they didn’t know existed, and look nothing like the dishes they grew up with.

Number Two: The Prayers & Music

The prayer services of both groups have the same structure and greatly overlap in terms of wording. But even though most of the wording is the same, the melodies are quite different. Here’s an Ashkenazi one. And here’s a Sephardic one. Elements of the synagogue, such as how the seats are arranged, are also quite different.

You can even hear the cultural influences in popular music in Israel through the years. Many of the Israeli folk songs came from Ashkenazi tunes. And today, Israeli pop music has a lot of Sephardic and Mizrachi influences.

Number Three: The Languages

Yiddish, which combined Hebrew with German, was only spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. So they were the ones busy noshing and kvetching. What chutzpah! Sephardic Jews had a variety of other languages, including Ladino and Ḥakitía, which, in part, combine Hebrew and Spanish, to name just a couple of the many languages. Both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews continued to maintain Hebrew, but even there, they had different ways of pronouncing certain letters and words. Many learned Hebrew in order to both pray and to understand the holy texts, like the Torah.

These days, both sides mostly speak the language of the country where they’re living. 

Number Four: The Laws & Traditions

Jewish laws go all the way back, predating the split between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities, so they share many of the same laws. The general rules around Kosher and Shabbat, for instance. But for hundreds of years, even if there was always some communication between the two sides, the two groups developed independently.

At one point, in the 1500’s, it was incredibly difficult to sort through and understand which Jewish laws to follow. So, at roughly the same time, both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities started working on collecting their own set of rules in one place. For a while, neither side realized the other side was simultaneously working on a similar project. When they realized this was happening, rather than creating two separate law-books, they agreed on having just one main Jewish book of rules called combined them into one comprehensive Jewish book of rules called the Shulchan Aruch. It had an add-on, a gloss, that called out the variations between the Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions. And it meant that in most cases, they could share the same set of rules.

Here’s just a couple examples of the many rules and customs (minhagim) that are different between the two groups. Sephardic Jews will name a child after a living relative, whereas Ashkenazi Jews will only name a kid after someone who has passed away. Also, Ashkenazi Torahs look like this and Sephardic Torahs look like this. At weddings, only Sephardic brides traditionally get henna and it’s only Ashkenazi brides who circle the groom seven times. We could make a whole top 5 of just different wedding traditions.

Number Five: The Movements

This difference is more abstract, getting to the very heart of who these two groups are. 

Most often, when Americans think about the different types of Jews, it has to do with the denominations, such as Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. But this separation between the movements only happened on the Ashkenazi side. The Reform Movement splitting off from traditional Judaism was, in part, influenced by the Protestants recently splitting off from the Catholics. To Sephardic (and Mizrachi) Jews, they had no such reference point. They developed in a completely different manner. To quote Micah Goodman:

“The movements and countermovements that complicated Jewish identity in Europe barely touched Jews in the Muslim world.”

Micah Goodman, The Wondering Jew

While Jews faced serious troubles under both Christian and Muslim rule, only one of those sets of circumstances led to a division between Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jewry. The influence of local environments, then, went beyond what people wore or what Jews ate. It colored the very way in which they saw the world. 

CONCLUSION

Today, these are not two groups geographically isolated from each other. There’s a lot more interaction between the two. For instance, when Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews marry each other, they have to choose which family customs to follow. And in interacting, and discussing these unique differences, the Jewish People continue to grow together. 

Despite the many differences, both sides share a core connection to the rest of the Jewish world. There’s something special so many Jews feel when they meet other Jews elsewhere in the world. It allows a traveler to jump into a local Jewish community in South America, excited to find a synagogue or hear Hebrew, even if it’s quite different from what they’re used to. 

The difficult question that remains is what does it mean to be part of one people? And what will it take to all keep growing together?

Final video, which I wrote and narrated, but did not direct or edit myself.