tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post5025347413945340173..comments2024-03-14T02:22:26.957+00:00Comments on Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab and Muslim Countries: The Jews who are neither Ashkenazi nor SephardiUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-78106006990116976212017-06-22T00:28:23.892+01:002017-06-22T00:28:23.892+01:00There is still much confusion about the difference...<br /> <i>There is still much confusion about the difference between Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews</i><br /><br />I'll try to address that question while at the same time explain how we call ourselves as well as show that there is much in common between Asians and Sephardim.<br /><br />ASHKENAZIM Jews from Germany (Ashkenaz) or whose religious centers were in Germany. Also known as Jews of the North in the Middle ages.<br /><br />EDOT HAMIZRAH (The communities of the East) Jews of the Middle East and the areas formerly dependent of the Babylonian Geonate as religious center before that center moved to North Africa (Kairouan). This includes communities of the Middle East and Asia as far East as the Indus as far North as Samarkand including Egypt, Lebanon Iraq, Iran, etc. It is in the plural because they lived among different peoples with different languages, laws and customs. Not all knew Judeo-Arabic which has become by the 8th century the language of communication of the Gaon and many go by different names.<br /><br />HAEADAH HA MAARAVIT (The Maghreban community or Western Community) of North Africa including Morocco Algeria Tunisia and Western Libya.<br />It is in the singular because they lived among one single people (the Berbers) who dwelt from Morocco to Egypt and ruled in parts of Spain for a while. Yet the religious rulings came from Babylonia just like for all the other communities of the East, people some of the youth went to study in those academies (for example Dunash Ibn Labrat, born in Fez) until the center of learning passed to Kairouan(today Tunisia) and from there to Fez with the Rif (Rabbi isaac El Fassi) then to Spain where the Rif founded the Academy of Lucena (where Maimonides fathers has studied)<br /><br />SEPHARAD From Hesperia (the West), as the Romans used to call Spain. That is where the two currents of Sephardi religious philosophy-the mystic and the rational met and developed. They studied the Babylonian Talmud and worshipped in Babylonian synagogues (The synagogue institution was founded by the leadership in Babylon).<br /><br />MIZRAHIM (ORIENTALS). This is an artificial construct that was imposed by a Knesset education committee in the mid 1970s, without our consent and without us being consulted, without even our knowledge. It was done mostly for campaign purposes, but there were many other reasons. Contrary to what the author of the article believes, we North African Jews have never accepted the name Mizrahi, which is nothing more than an unrelated geographic designation and without a history or heritage. <br /><br /><br />Sylvianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-26055515726477045972017-06-21T18:11:22.312+01:002017-06-21T18:11:22.312+01:00This a very interesting subject. As the grandson o...This a very interesting subject. As the grandson of early twentieth-century immigrants to the UK from Eastern Europe and Ukraine I only ever thought of Ashkenazim or Sephardim - assuming all of the Asians were Sephardi. I think it is as a light to the world that, generally speaking, these two main elements of Judaism are so accepting of each other.<br /><b><a href="http://todiscoverice.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow"> CLICK HERE for Bazza’s unlikely Blog ‘To Discover Ice’</a></b>bazzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14794010156639774028noreply@blogger.com