The Ashkenazi culture, with its deeply unsettled relationship to the larger world, has now become the Jewish standard In terms of the Jewish future, the SephardiAshkenazi split is of immense importance Understanding the cultural differences between the two groups is vital for our political interests Ironically, even the articulation ofAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or simply Ashkenazim (אַשְׁכְּנַזִּים, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז Y'hudey Ashkenaz), are a Jewish diaspora population who coalesced in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium The traditional diaspora language of Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish (a Germanic language with elements of Hebrew and AramaicI hail from the socalled Ashkenazi branch of Jews, who account for the great majority of all Jews in the world today Ashkenazis are distinguished by the historical fact that, over the last couple of thousand years or so, they propagated throughout Europe, generating and maintaining tens of thousands of
