[All Lists] [By Thread] [By Date] [Previous] [Next]
From: R. Halevi
Subject: Geographic identity
Date: 5 Cheshvan 5784
Subject: Traditional regions
If we use traditional categories:
- Ashkenaz — but where is Ashkenaz? The word originally meant Germany. But Ashkenazi Jews spread to Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, eventually America. Is an American Jew whose family left Poland in 1905 "from Ashkenaz"?
- Sepharad — Spain. But Sephardim left Spain in 1492. A Sephardi whose family has lived in Turkey for 500 years — are they "from Sepharad"?
- Mizrach — "the East." East of what? Of Europe, presumably. But to a Jew in Baghdad, everything is east of something.
These categories describe ancestry, not geography. They are already captured in our ethnicity codes.
Thread: