Are you ashkenazi or sephardi?

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Super Jew

I'm Ashkenazi. My mom's side is all Russian and Ukranian Jews, my dad's mom is an Argentinian Jew of Ashkenazi stock, and my dad's dad was a Columbian Gentile. I like to joke that this combination of Ashkenazi Jew and "Sephardi" (i.e. Hispanic) Goy on my father's side makes me a Sephardi Jew. Most of my Sephardic friends don't buy it, but they dubbed me an honorary Sephardi anyway when I was the only one at the Shabbat table who could remember the words to "Nagila Halleluya" or "Ata El Kabir". I'm still waiting to get my membership card so I can have it on hand when I start going on shidduch dates (if I can get fixed up with a nice Sephardi girl). If she complains that I'm too white, I can whip out the card and say: "Nuh-uh. See? This is my Sephard-Card," which of course would only reinforce one's perception of my overall Ashkenazitude. *sigh* I guess you just can't win.

EDIT to Mama Pajama:

Yeah, whether it's accurate or not, Mizrahim tend to get lumped in with Sephardim. You know, because they all look the same. Just kidding! But seriously, I think they tend to be treated as Sephardic because Sephardim and Mizhrahim share a lot of minhagim (like their nusach for davening - go figure Sephardim daven "eidot mizrah," while "nusach sephard" is davened almost exclusively by [chassidishe] Ashkenazim). Technically, Sephardim and Mizrahim should be counted as separate, as well as the Teimani Jews, and don't even get me started on the more than 150,000 Black Jews - our brothers and sisters from Ethiopia. Just as an interesting aside - I can tell you from first-hand experience (lived in Istanbul for a year, spending a lot of time with the tiny handful of Jews there that keep kosher - I also have some Moroccan Jewish friends who hold this way) that while a lot of Mizrahi Jews eat kitniyos on Pesach, TRUE Sephardim (those whose ancestors hailed from Spain) do not. They do define kitniyos slightly differently from us Ashkenazim (fresh green beans don't count, I think, but dried beans, rice, and corn all do), but what they count as kitniyos they do not allow on Passover. Kinda funny, since we all associate kitniyos on Pesach with Sephardim, but Sephardic Sephardim keep nearly identical customs with Ashkenazim.

LadySuri

Ashkenazi I'm from Ireland

Ultra N

Sfaradi, more specifically Mizrachi.

And yes, moneymaker, B does stand for B*tch Liar, which in itself is the shortened form of B*tch Liar Who Is Quite Intellectually Deficient, Yet To Hear Herself Talk, She Must Open Her Big Mouth And Flaunt Her Stupidity And Lack Of Education.

MikeInRI

Ashkenazi - my family comes from five different Eastern European nations.

Good Luck!!!

paperback_writer

Ashkenazi, my family are also from Russia :)

EDIT TO THE B

: Oh, so now we're 'playing the anti semitism card' are we? So I'm just imagining the disgusting remark made by that guy yesterday, am I? And I'm just imagining the fact that in Britain, Jews require police escorts to walk to synagogue because of the sheer number of physical assaults upon them?

B, do you realise how stupid and uneducated you are now starting to sound? Why don't you show a tiny bit of class and read the comments by mama_pjama. Either do that, or shut your ugly big trap. You're boring us all.

Sawyer

Ashkenazi. Mothers' side from Russia; fathers' side from Germany.The town my Moms' family is from was sometimes in Polish control & sometimes in Russian control.

DANIEL W

I'm Ashkenazi, all my great-grandparents were born in Russia or Poland.

ISRAEL4ME...

Ashkenazi!
Three out of four of my grandparents come from Russia. my fathers mother is Sephardi from Algiers. She met my grandfathered who was a doctor in world war II when my grandmother was working for him.So we've got them both.

shanti_g

both -
polish and iraqi

tal

I'm Ashkenazi my mother came from Russia my father USA

kismet

Ashkenazi.
My father's family came from Warsaw, and my mother's family came from Prague.
Our family tree goes back to the MAHARAL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharal), and all the way to King David.
Thus; although my grandparents came from Europe, my family has deep roots in Israel.

anikan

Ashkenazi. My parents are from Russia, and i am pale and i have straight hair with ginger tone. I am very kind and soft hearted.

riviva

ashkenazi but i look partly sephardi... maybe there is sephardi on my father's side; no one knows anything about them.

and i am sephardi on peseach :)

...edit... i got thumbs down, why? for eating rice? ;)

vansemmanuel

I am Mizrahi/sephardi.My dad is Lebanese and Morroccan.And my mom is half portugese but we follow ashkenazi and sephardic customs.While keeping in touch with our mizrahi background.lol

Janice

Ashkenazi. My family is from Russia and Ireland.

albert

nothing of them

moneymaker

Ashkeh.

B stands for......

mama_pajama_1

Both!

However, I know more about the Ashkenazi side of my father's ancestry than the Sepahrdi and Ashkenazi mixed background of my mother's side.

My paternal Grandfather was born in Telechan, Pinsk district in the province of Minsk in Russia.

My paternal Grandmother was born in Lahishyn, Pinsk district in the privince of Minsk in Russia.

both of those areas now are considered as in Belarus.

They were nearby villages where a large portion of the Jewish settlement know as "The Pale of Settlement" had been living for centuries. It is my understanding from oral family history that our ancestors came from Italy after expulsions during the middle ages. I know people always thought my Dad was Italian.

Both grandparents said their families had roots going back hundreds of years in that area that they described as having beautiful streams, rolling hills and mountains and they felt a close tie to the land.

My mother's ancestry has trails harder to trace as there was much more moving around. Her family ancestry knowledge begins in Toledo, Spain and with that expulsion the story is that they ended up in one of the British Isles and then after a couple of generations there, ended up in Germany where there was intermarriage with Ashkenazi. I do not know most of the town names where they lived, but I do know they came to the U.S in the late 1800s.

I am tall, blue-eyed and blonde haired. Both of my parents were blonde as children and their hair darkened. My Russian Jewish grandmother had ice blue eyes..her father,a rabbi, had blue eyes and reddish blonde hair.

Because so few Jews are here where I live, I have heard COUNTLESS times on finding out I am Jewish said one of the following "Are you a convert? Are you a "real" Jew? Is your mother a real Jew? There are Jews in ARKANSAS? " You don't look Jewish" " You can't be a "real" Jew, Jews don't have blonde hair and blue eyes" Or, they start getting really intrusive into my ancestry right away, "Jews are dark haired, who was the convert in your family?"

I've always tried to answer politely, understanding that ignorance and misconceptions aren't a character flaw, but once in a while when one of them is particularly rude or intrusive or immediately bigoted where they weren't before I have SO wanted to answer "Hmm..let's see, that could have been a thousand years ago in Itay or how about in the 1500's in Ireland or Scotland or perhaps there was a Cossak or two that decided rather than plunder and pillage they'd convert..hmm..I don't know..when did your ancestors begin inbreeding?"
But, so far, I've restrained myself!

Shalom y'all from Arkansas!

EDIT: this question is excluding some who have Jewish ancestry if it is limited to Sephardi and Ashkenazi..what about the Mizrahi whose ancestry never went to Spain?

EDIT number 2...LOL! I'm not Mizrahi! I said I'm Ashkenazi and Sepahrdi :) I just didn't want anyone excluded, thanks !

In reference to an uneducated comment by "B" : the TERM antisemitism was created in GERMANY about 130 years ago to be used specifically to refer to JEW hate ..a form of "politically correct" euphemism to say rather than use the words..Jew hate. It was also tied into the growing acceptance of pseudo-scientific concepts of race growing in popularity in Europe. The choice of the word semitism was because the language of the Jews, Hebrew, is Semitic in nature.. . In addition to your ignorance about the definition of the word antisemitism, I suppose you didn't read about all those genetic studies linking Ashkenazi to the Middle east..and even confirming my own oral family history that I'd learned more than 40 years ago..that it was via the expulsions from the ghettos of Italy (where the word ghetto came from )..the Jews of Italy who came there from Israel originally..went north and east.

It also explains why so many Eastern European Jews and Italians look alike, ( and Jewish and Italian actors can switch parts for ethnic roles easily) and share some genetic diseases.

Antisemitism is a term specific to JEWS. It isn't referring to any other semitic language based people or to a specific "race". There are many semitic languages. Jews have not been of exclusively "Semitic" races since the days of the Bible and the Diaspora although our holy language, Hebrew remains a semitic language.

I doubt that you will concern yourself with these facts, but just in case there are some who come across this and have been confused when people claim that bigotry to non-Jewish arabs is antisemitism..they're just flat wrong. Bigotry is wrong no matter who displays it. The word was first coined to mean Jew hate and for more than a century, that has been its exclusive meaning and despite the attempts in recent years to abrogate that definition and reassign it, educated people know better.

Shalom

EDIT to Kismet, I have a very old book translated from the German about The Golem written by Chayim Block, printed in Vienna, Austria in 1925. It belonged to my maternal grandmother. That is where I first learned of Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal. I've wondered, but never bothered to look up to see if the fascinating monunment that is in the book managed to endure World War 2.

EDIT: Did ANYONE read in my posting about antisemitism a claim that I was "Semite". What is the problem with using standard definitions for words in the English language, people? Is this really that difficult to comprehend?
I know my post is long, but I really try to use simple language.
Pardon for those of you who've already read this above but I think I may need to repeat it for those it went past.
"Antisemitism is a term specific to JEWS. It isn't referring to any other semitic language based people or to a specific "race". There are many semitic languages. Jews have not been of exclusively "Semitic" races since the days of the Bible and the Diaspora although our holy language, Hebrew remains a semitic language." ( I'm quoting myself from above here)

Pinhead

no, im scotch-irish american
(why the thumbs down, are you racist?)
..and I thought jews were nice, I guess I'll have to change my views

ok Green if you didnt, your a good jew.
×©×œ×•×

EU Citizen

Actually B is right Ashekanazi jews are not semitic they are caucuasian mostly, i dont care if you can trace your DNA back to the mediterean your still a vanilla face wether you like it or not.

Mashtin Baqir

I am a Sefardi Muslim.

B Ø¨ØºØ¯Ø§Ø¯

that means you're not semitic. only sephardi jews are semites. Interesting how everyone here is not actually sephardi, and they still play on the ''anti-semite'' card.

didn't i tell you where to keep your suggestions for me, paper? what, is there no garbage bin near you ?

if you think it's within your right to decide whether or not mimi is palestinian, then it's also my right to be able to decide whether or not you're semitic. Don't like this? ask me if i care.

p.s. I think I've given you the wrong impression paperback, see I don't really give a rat's as* whether or not I'm keeping you entertained here, so if you find me boring then just know that I find you 20 times more boring, esp. now with your new found love for dumb racist. kapish ? If you still find yourself inclined to give me your opinion about, umm my opinion, then just know that it's probably more productive for you to just bang your head against the wall. Maybe then you'll finally get the psychiatric help that you so desperately need.

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