阿肯納西猶太人

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阿肯納西猶太人 (Ashkenazi Jews)，指的是源於中世纪德国莱茵兰一带的猶太人後裔 (阿肯納西在近代指德國)。其中很多人自10世紀至19世紀期間，向東歐遷移。从中世纪到20二十世纪中叶，他們普遍採用意第緒語或者斯拉夫语言作為通用語。其文化和宗教习俗受到周边其他国家的影响。

在11世纪，阿肯納西猶太人仅占全世界犹太人的3%，然而到1931年他们占有历史最高纪录的92%，现在占世界犹太人的80%^[1]。在欧洲有久远历史的犹太群体，除了地中海一带的，大多数属于阿肯納西。最近两个世纪来从欧洲外迁，特别是移民美国的的犹太人相当一部分来自东欧的阿肯納西犹太人。

目录 1 定义 1.1 宗教定义 1.2 文化传统 1.3 族裔定义 1.4 在以色列的重组 1.5 参考文献：阿肯纳西的定义 2 阿肯纳西的来源 2.1 罗马帝国时期的背景 2.2 Rabbinic Judaism moves to Ashkenaz 2.3 DNA clues 3 Ashkenazi migrations throughout the High and Late Middle Ages 3.1 名城来历 3.2 中世纪的文献 4 Customs, laws and traditions 5 和其他犹太人的关系 6 人口基因 6.1 特殊疾病 7 现代历史 7.1 纳粹大屠杀 7.2 成就 8 参考文献

[编辑] 定义

当今，在全世界范围内没有一个通用的犹太人定义情况下，确切的定义谁是阿肯納西犹太人更为困难。现行定义包括宗教、文化、族裔的几个方式。不过随着社会的变化，一两代人以前还很清楚的定义也变得模糊起来。近年来在以色列，阿肯纳西犹太人另外有一个完全不同的含义。

[编辑] 宗教定义

宗教上说，家庭传统和宗教仪式采用阿肯纳西习俗的称为阿肯纳西犹太人。在中世纪，阿肯纳西群体开始形成的时候，当时犹太教信仰的权威中心在穆斯林世界：巴格达和伊斯兰统治下的西班牙。由于阿肯纳西群体地理位置偏僻远离中心，宗教传统的发展比较独立，他们的希伯来文发音也与其他犹太人有别。

在这方面，阿肯纳西犹太人和瑟法底犹太人（Sephardic Jews）的情况类似。since most non-Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews follow Sephardic rabbinical authorities, whether or not they are ethnically Sephardic. By tradition, a Sephardic or Mizrahi woman who marries into an Orthodox or Haredi Ashkenazi Jewish family raises her children to be Ashkenazi Jews, and a gentile who converts to Judaism and takes on Ashkenazi religious practices becomes an Ashkenazi Jew.

Jewish law or Halacha does not define who is a Jew confessionally, by faith. No central authority or ruling body in Judaism determines who is a Jew. Nor does membership in a synagogue or local Jewish community make one a Jew. Furthermore, a person who no longer wishes to be a Jew is still considered to be Jewish. It should come as no surprise that many famous Ashkenazi Jews have denied being Jewish. The following examples illustrate this aspect of Jewish identity.

• Apostasy. A Jew who converts to another religion is considered an apostate, but he is still a Jew. Felix Mendelssohn, who converted to Protestantism and dedicated a symphony to the Reformation was an Ashkenazi Jew.
• Atheism. A Jew who becomes an atheist is still considered a Jew. Karl Marx, an atheist whose Jewish mother and father had converted to Christianity before he was born, was an Ashkenazi Jew.
• Hidden Identity. A Jew whose identity was hidden, who was raised in another religion, is still a Jew. Madeleine Albright, the former American Secretary of State whose Jewish parents converted to Catholicism to escape persecution in the Holocaust and then hid their ancestry, is an Ashkenazi Jew by a traditional halakic definition, even though she did not know of her identity until she became an adult, and was already a professing Catholic.
• Renunciation. A Jew who renounces and even condemns Judaism is still a Jew. Bobby Fischer, the international chess star who has claimed that the Holocaust was a Jewish invention and a lie, is an Ashkenazi Jew.

With the reintegration of Jews from around the world in Israel, North America, and other places, the religious definition of an Ashkenazi Jew is blurring, especially outside of Orthodox Judaism. Many Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews have joined liberal movements that originally developed within Ashkenazi Judaism. At least in recent decades, the congregations they have joined have often embraced them, and absorbed new traditions into their minhag. Rabbis and Cantors in all non-Orthodox movements study Hebrew in Israel, learning Sephardic rather than Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation. Ashkenazi congregations are adopting Sephardic or modern Israeli melodies for many prayers and traditional songs. Since the middle of the 20th century there has been a gradual syncretism and fusion of traditions, and this is affecting the minhag of all but the most traditional congregations.

New developments in Judaism often transcend differences in religious practice between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. For example, there has been increased interest in Kaballah in recent years. Judaism is an evolving religious tradition in which new layers of commentary are constantly being added to the existing body of literature. Even portions of the scripture that have been canonized, like the Tanakh, are constantly being offered in new editions and translations, with new interpretations. Another trend is the new popularity of ecstatic worship in the Jewish Renewal movement and the Carlebach style minyan, both of which are nominally of Ashkenazi origin.^[2]

[编辑] 文化传统

In a cultural sense, an Ashkenazi Jew can be identified by the concept of Yiddishkeit, a word that literally means “Jewishness” in the Yiddish language. Of course, there are other kinds of Jewishness. Yiddishkeit is simply the Jewishness of Ashkenazi Jews. Before the Haskalah and the emancipation of Jews in Europe, this meant the study of Torah and Talmud for men, and a family and communal life governed by the observance of Jewish Law for men and women. From the Rhineland to Riga to Romania, most Jews prayed in liturgical Ashkenazi Hebrew, and spoke some dialect of Yiddish in their secular lives.

But with modernization, Yiddishkeit now encompasses not just Orthodoxy and Hasidism, but a broad range of movements, ideologies, practices, and traditions in which Ashkenazi Jews have participated and somehow retained a sense of Jewishness. Although few Jews still speak Yiddish, Yiddishkeit can be identified in manners of speech, in styles of humor, in patterns of association. Broadly speaking, a Jew is one who associates culturally with Jews, supports Jewish institutions, reads Jewish books and periodicals, attends Jewish movies and theater, travels to Israel, visits ancient synagogues in Prague, and so forth.

The existence of Israel is creating a new Jewishness that transcends Yiddishkeit and other definitions of Jewishness. To an older generation, Jewish food is chopped liver and gefiltefish, but to younger generation it is hummus and falafel.

[编辑] 族裔定义

从族裔上讲，阿肯纳西是祖先可追溯到于中欧和东欧的犹太人。在大约一千年的时间里，阿肯纳西犹太人虽然与其他人群共处一地，却很少移民、改信或与当地人（包括其他犹太人）通婚，故在生殖上是孤立的。人类基因学家在Y染色体和线粒体研究中，发现某些haplotype在阿肯纳西群体中概率很高，然而在普通欧洲人群中却不是这样。

从二十世纪中期开始，很多阿肯纳西犹太人开始和其他犹太人和非犹太人通婚。有些犹太人家庭从世界各地收养儿童，并把他们在犹太传统中养大。以前一千五百年来很少见的改信犹太教现象变得普通起来。还有很多接受人工授精的犹太妇女为了避免隐性遗传疾病而采用非犹太人的捐精。最后一个行为还得到了正派犹太教权威的鼓励，因为匿名的犹太男性捐精人可能因为宗教上的问题使生出来的子女成为杂种。以上几个原因使得靠基因或自线来定义的阿肯纳西“民族”变得相当模糊。

[编辑] 在以色列的重组

近年来，在以色列“阿肯纳西”有一个全新的用法：凡是来自欧洲，包括欧洲的瑟法底犹太人，统统被称作“阿肯纳西”。其他的犹太人（来自也门、库尔德等地），包括身世和伊比利亚半岛无关的，统称“瑟法底”。然而越来越多的异地通婚双方摒弃这种标签。

以色列社会由于其复杂性，多个社会、经济和宗教势力在议会中互相竞争。选举的时候，每个政党公布一个名单，名单上的候选人按照全党得票进入一院制的议会（120个席位）。所有的公民，不论是犹太人、穆斯林、基督徒、Druze、撒马里亚人等等，都有权投票。选举结束后，占席位最多的政党通过和其他党谈判组建一个大多数联合政府。

一部分以色列选民投票给宗教政党。虽然逐年的选举情况不同，总有几个小党和宗教意义上的阿肯纳西犹太人关系密切。以色列宗教意义上的阿肯纳西犹太人必须遵守阿肯纳西大拉比的宗教裁定。从这个意义上讲，这些宗教意义上的阿肯纳西犹太人也必须支持某些以色列政党和宗教利益。

[编辑] 参考文献：阿肯纳西的定义

• Goldberg, Harvey E. (2001). The Life of Judaism, University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21267-3.
• Silberstein, Laurence (2000). Mapping Jewish Identities, New York University Press. ISBN 0-814-79769-5.
• Wettstein, Howard (2002). Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity, University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22864-2.
• Wex, Michael (2005). Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-30741-1.

[编辑] 阿肯纳西的来源

虽然历史资料有限，现在基于文化、语言学和基因证据的共识是阿肯纳西群体发源于中东。在公元800-1000年左右其祖先移居法国北方和莱茵兰的时候，带去了巴比伦 塔木德文化基础上的拉比犹太教。阿肯纳西犹太人一度广泛使用的意第绪语深受希伯来语和阿拉美语的影响，但却没有希腊语和拉丁语影响。最近的人类基因研究也证实很大一部分阿肯纳西人的祖先来自中东。

[编辑] 罗马帝国时期的背景

After the forced Jewish exile from Jerusalem in 70 CE and the complete Roman takeover of Judea following the Bar Kochba rebellion of 132-135 CE, Jews continued to be a majority of the population in Palestine for several hundred years. However, the Romans no longer recognized the authority of the Sanhedrin or any other Jewish body, and Jews were prohibited from living in Jerusalem. Outside the Roman Empire, a large Jewish community remained in Mesopotamia. Other Jewish populations could be found dispersed around the Mediterranean region, with the largest concentrations in the Levant, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, including Rome itself. Smaller communities are recorded in southern Gaul (France), Spain, and North Africa.

Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until 212 CE, when Emperor Caracalla granted all free peoples this privilege. However as a penalty for the first Jewish Revolt, Jews were still required to pay a poll tax until the reign of Emperor Julian in 363 CE. In the late Roman Empire, Jews were still free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. But after Christianity became the official religion of Rome and Constantinople, Jews were increasingly marginalized.

In Palestine and Mesopotamia, where Jewish religious scholarship was centered, the majority of Jews were still engaged in farming, as demonstrated by the preoccupation of early Talmudic writings with agriculture. In diaspora communities, trade was a common occupation, facilitated by the easy mobility of traders through the dispersed Jewish communities.

Throughout this period and into the early Middle Ages, many Jews assimilated into the dominant Greek and Latin cultures, mostly through conversion to Christianity. In Palestine and Mesopotamia, the spoken language of Jews continued to be Aramaic, but elsewhere in the diaspora, most Jews spoke Greek. Conversion and assimilation were especially common within the Hellenized or Greek speaking Jewish communities, amongst whom the Septuagint and Aquila of Sinope (Greek translations and adaptations of the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible) were the source of scripture. A remnant of this Greek speaking Jewish population (the Romaniotes) survives to this day.

The Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century by tribes such as the Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, and Vandals caused massive economic and social instability within the western Empire, contributing to its decline. In the late Roman Empire, Jews are known to have lived in Cologne and Trier, as well as in what is now France. However, it is unclear whether there is any continuity between these late Roman communities and the distinct Ashkenazi Jewish culture that began to emerge about 500 years later. King Dagobert of the Franks expelled the Jews from his Merovingian kingdom in 629. Jews in former Roman territories now faced new challenges as harsher anti-Jewish Church rulings were enforced.

[编辑] Rabbinic Judaism moves to Ashkenaz

In Mesopotamia, in Persian lands free of Roman imperial domination, Jewish life fared much better. Since the conquest of Judea by Nebuchadrezzar II, this community had always been the leading diaspora community, a rival to the leadership of Palestine. After conditions for Jews began to deteriorate in Roman controlled lands, many of the religious leaders of Judea and the Galilee fled to the east. At the academies of Pumbeditha and Sura near Babylon, Rabbinic Judaism based on Talmudic learning began to emerge and assert its authority over Jewish life throughout the diaspora. Rabbinic Judaism created a religious mandate for literacy, requiring all Jewish males to learn Hebrew and read from the Torah. This emphasis on literacy and learning a second language would eventually be of great benefit to the Jews, allowing them to take on commercial and financial roles within Gentile societies where literacy was often quite low.

After the Islamic conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, new opportunities for trade and commerce opened between the Middle East and western Europe. The vast majority of Jews in the world now lived in Islamic lands. Urbanization, trade, and commerce within the Islamic world allowed Jews, as a highly literate people, to abandon farming and live in cities, engaging in occupations where they could use their skills.^[3] The influential, sophisticated, and well organized Jewish community of Mesopotamia, now centered in Baghdad, became the center of the Jewish world. In the Caliphate of Baghdad, Jews took on many of the financial occupations that they would later hold in the cities of Ashkenaz. Jewish traders from Baghdad began to travel to the west, renewing Jewish life in the western Mediterranean region. They brought with them Rabbinic Judaism and Babylonian Talmudic scholarship.

After 800 CE, Charlemagne's unification of former Frankish lands with northern Italy and Rome brought on a brief period of stability and unity in western Europe. This created opportunities for Jewish merchants to settle once again north of the Alps. Charlemagne granted the Jews in his lands freedoms similar to those once enjoyed under the Roman Empire. Returning once again to Frankish lands, many Jewish merchants took on occupations in finance and commerce, including moneylending or usury. (Church legislation banned Christians from lending money in exchange for interest.) From Charlemagne's time on to the present, there is a well documented record of Jewish life in northern Europe, and by the 11th century, when Rashi of Troyes wrote his commentaries, Ashkenazi Jews had emerged also as interpreters and commentators on the Torah and Talmud.

[编辑] DNA clues

Efforts to identify the origins of Ashkenazi Jews through DNA analysis began in the 1990s. Like most DNA studies of human migration patterns, these studies have focused on two segments of the human genome, the Y chromosome (inherited only by males), and the mitochondrial genome (DNA which passes from mother to child). Both segments are unaffected by recombination. Thus, they provide an indicator of paternal and maternal origins, respectively.

A study of haplotypes of the Y chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al^[4] found that the Y chromosome of most Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews was of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced primarily to the Middle East.

The first research on Ashkenazi maternal ancestry was less conclusive. A 2002 study by Goldstein et al^[5] found that "the women's origins cannot be genetically determined", but that "his own speculation" was that "most Jewish communities were formed by unions between Jewish men and local women."

More recent research indicates that a significant portion of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry is also of Middle Eastern origin. A 2006 study by Behar et al^[6], based on haplotype analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women. These four "founder lineages" were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE. According to the authors, "The observed global pattern of distribution renders very unlikely the possibility that the four aforementioned founder lineages entered the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool via gene flow from a European host population."

Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only four women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium.^[6][7]

David Goldstein of Duke University has argued that sample populations in these studies were small and not randomly selected, and that the results may not be statistically significant.^[8]

[编辑] Ashkenazi migrations throughout the High and Late Middle Ages

Historical records show evidence of Jewish communities north of the Alps and Pyrenees as early as the 8th and 9th Century. (Cochran et. al., p.11) By the early 900s, Jewish populations were well-established in Northern Europe, and later followed the Norman Conquest into England in 1066, also settling in the Rhineland. With the onset of the Crusades, and the expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), and parts of Germany (1400s), Jewish migration pushed eastward into Poland, Lithuania, and Russia. Over this period of several hundred years, some have suggested, Jewish economic activity was focused on trade, business management, and financial services, due to Christian European prohibitions restricting certain activities by Jews, and preventing certain financial activities (such as "usurious" loans) between Christians. (Ben-Sasson, H. (1976) A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.)

By the 1400s, the Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Poland were the largest Jewish communities of the Diaspora.^[9] It would remain that way until the Holocaust.

[编辑] 名城来历

In reference to the Jewish peoples of Northern Europe and particularly the Rhineland, the word Ashkenazi is often found in medieval rabbinic literature. References to Ashkenaz in Yosippon and Hasdai's letter to the king of the Khazars would date the term as far back as the tenth century, as would also Saadia Gaon's commentary on Daniel 7:8.

The word "Ashkenaz" first appears in the genealogy in the Tanakh (Genesis 10) as a son of Gomer and grandson of Japheth. It is thought that the name originally applied to the Scythians (Ishkuz), who were called Ashkuza in Assyrian inscriptions, and lake Ascanius and the region Ascania in Anatolia derive their names from this group. The "Ashkuza" have also been linked to the Oghuz branch of Turks including nearly all Turkic peoples today from Turkey to Turkmenistan.

Ashkenaz in later Hebrew tradition became identified with the peoples of Germany, and in particular to the area along the Rhine where the Alamanni tribe once lived (compare the French and Spanish words Allemagne and Alemania, respectively, for Germany).

The autonym was usually Yidn, however.

[编辑] 中世纪的文献

In the first half of the eleventh century, Hai Gaon refers to questions that had been addressed to him from "Ashkenaz", by which he undoubtedly means Germany. Rashi in the latter half of the eleventh century refers to both the language of Ashkenaz^[10] and the country of Ashkenaz.^[11] During the twelfth century the word appears quite frequently. In the Mahzor Vitry, the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of the synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances.^[12]

In the literature of the thirteenth century references to the land and the language of Ashkenaz often occur. See especially Solomon ben Aderet's Responsa (vol. i., No. 395); the Responsa of Asher ben Jehiel (pp. 4, 6); his Halakot (Berakot i. 12, ed. Wilna, p. 10); the work of his son Jacob ben Asher, Tur Orach Chayim (chapter 59); the Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet (numbers 193, 268, 270).

In the Midrash compilation Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Berechiah mentions "Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah" as German tribes or as German lands. It may correspond to a Greek word that may have existed in the Greek dialect of the Palestinian Jews, or the text is corrupted from "Germanica." This view of Berechiah is based on the Talmud (Yoma 10a; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 71b), where Gomer, the father of Ashkenaz, is translated by Germamia, which evidently stands for Germany, and which was suggested by the similarity of the sound.

In later times the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern and western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany and Poland. Thus the prayer-book of Isaiah Horowitz, and many others, give the piyyutim according to the Minhag of Ashkenaz and Poland.

[编辑] Customs, laws and traditions

The Halakhic practices of Ashkenazi Jews may differ from those of Sephardi Jews, particularly in matters of custom. Differences are noted in the Shulkhan Arukh itself, in the gloss of Moses Isserles. Well known differences in practice include:

• Observance of Pesach (Passover): Ashkenazi Jews traditionally refrain from eating legumes, corn, millet, and rice, whereas Sephardi Jews typically do not prohibit these foods.
• In the case of kashrut for meat, conversely, Sephardi Jews have stricter requirements - this level is commonly referred to as Beth Yosef. Meat products which are acceptable to Ashkenazi Jews as kosher may therefore be rejected by Sephardi Jews. Notwithstanding stricter requirements for the actual slaughter, Sephardi Jews permit the rear portions of an animal after proper Halakhic removal of the sciatic nerve, while many Ashkenazi Jews do not. This is not because of different interpretations of the law; rather, slaughterhouses could not find adequate skills for correct removal of the sciatic nerve and found it more economical to separate the hindquarters and sell them as non-kosher meat.
• Ashkenazi Jews frequently name newborn children after deceased family members, but not after living relatives. Sephardi Jews, on the other hand, often name their children after the children's grandparents, even if those grandparents are still living. (See Sephardi Names). A notable exception to this generally reliable rule is among Dutch Jews, where Ashkenazim for centuries used the naming conventions otherwise attributed exclusively to Sephardim. (See Chuts.)
• Ashkenazi Jews have a custom for the bride and groom to refrain from meeting one week prior to their wedding.

[编辑] 和其他犹太人的关系

Template:犹太人 The term Ashkenazi also refers to the nusach (Hebrew, "liturgical tradition") used by Ashkenazi Jews in their Siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition's choice of prayers, order of prayers, text of prayers and melodies used in the singing of prayers.

This phrase is often used in contrast with Sephardi Jews, also called Sephardim, who are descendants of Jews from Spain and Portugal. There are some differences in how the two groups pronounce Hebrew and in points of ritual.

Several famous people have this as a surname, such as Vladimir Ashkenazi. Ironically, most people with this surname are in fact Sephardi, and usually of Syrian Jewish background. This family name was adopted by the families who lived in Sephardi countries and were of Ashkenazic origins, after being nicknamed Ashkenazi by their respective communities. Some have shortened the name to Ash. Other spellings exist, such as Eskenazi by the Syrian Jews who relocated to Panama and other South-American Jewish communities.

Literature about the alleged Turkic origin of the Ashkenazi population appeared mainly after 1950, but it has been claimed faulty by most recent scholars.

See also: Jew, Judaism, Rabbenu Gershom

[编辑] 人口基因

[编辑] 特殊疾病

The Ashkenazi Jewish population has, like many other endogamous populations, a higher incidence of specific hereditary diseases. Genetic counseling and genetic testing are recommended for couples where both partners are of Ashkenazi ancestry. Some organizations, most notably Dor Yeshorim, organize screening programs to prevent homozygosity for the genes that cause these diseases. A large number of these diseases are neurological. See Jewish Genetics Center for more information on testing programmes.

Diseases with higher incidence in Ashkenazim include, in alphabetical order:

• Bloom syndrome
• 乳腺癌 and 卵巢癌 (due to higher distribution of BRCA1 and BRCA2).
• Canavan disease
• Colorectal cancer due to hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC).
• Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (non-classical form)
• Crohn's disease (the NOD2/CARD15 locus appears to be implicated)
• Cystic fibrosis
• Familial dysautonomia (Riley-Day Syndrome)
• Fanconi anemia
• Gaucher's disease
• Hemophilia C
• Mucolipidosis IV
• Niemann-Pick disease
• Pemphigus vulgaris
• Tay-Sachs disease
• Torsion dystonia
• Von Gierke disease

[编辑] 现代历史

In an essay on Sephardi Jewry, Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs^[1] summarized the demographic history of Ashkenazi Jews in the last thousand years, noting that at the end of the 11th Century, 97% of world Jewry was Sephardic and 3% Ashkenazic; in the mid-seventeenth century, "Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two," but by the end of the 18th Century "Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe as against the Muslim world."^[1] By 1931, Ashkenazi Jews accounted for nearly 92 percent of world Jewry.^[1]

Ashkenazi Jews developed the Hasidic movement as well as major Jewish academic centers across Poland, Russia, and Lithuania in the generations after emigration from the west. After two centuries of comparative tolerance in the new nations, massive westward emigration occurred in the 1800s and 1900s in response to pogroms and the economic opportunities offered in other parts of the world. Ashkenazi Jews have made up the majority of the American Jewish community since 1750.^[9]

Ashkenazi cultural growth led to the Haskalah or Jewish Enlightenment, and the development of Zionism in modern Europe.

[编辑] 纳粹大屠杀

Of the estimated 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of World War II, the majority of whom were Ashkenazi, about 6 million — more than two-thirds — were systematically murdered in the Holocaust. These included 3 million of 3.3 million Polish Jews (91%); 900,000 of 1.1 million in Ukraine (82%); and 50-90% of the Jews of other Slavic nations, Germany, France, Hungary, and the Baltic states. The only non-Ashkenazi community to have suffered similar depletions were the Jews of Greece.^[13] Many of the surviving Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to countries such as Israel and the United States after the war.

Today, Ashkenazi Jews constitute approximately 80% of world Jewry,^[1] but probably less than half of Israeli Jews (see Demographics of Israel). Nevertheless they have traditionally played a prominent role in the media, economy and politics of Israel. Tensions have sometimes arisen between the mostly Ashkenazi elite whose families founded the state, and later migrants from various non-Ashkenazi groups, who argue that they are discriminated against.

[编辑] 成就

Ashkenazi Jews have a noted history of achievement. Though only 0.25% of the world population, Jewish scientists make up 28% of Nobel prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics, and have accounted for more than half of world chess champions.^[14] In the United States, Ashkenazi Jews represent 2% of the population, but have won 40% of the US Nobel Prizes in science, and 25% of the ACM Turing Awards (the Nobel-equivalent in computer science). A significant decline in the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Europeans and a corresponding increase in the number of prizes awarded to US citizens occurred at the same time as Nazi persecutions of Jews during the 1930s and the Holocaust during the 1940s.^[15]

Many studies show Ashkenazi Jews as having the highest average IQ of any ethnic group, eight to fifteen points higher than Europeans and leading East Asians, who are another high scoring group.^[16] These studies also indicate that this advantage is primarily in verbal and mathematical, but not spatial, areas.

It's been suggested that this difference in achievement may be due not only to a culture of study and vocational training, but partially to a difference in population history. One recent theory suggests European Jews' history of persecution and subsequent working in high proportion in some IQ-intensive jobs which were forbidden to gentiles by the church resulted in selective pressure for IQ-related genes, including genetic mutations that cause genetic disease when inherited from both parents (Cochran et al. 2005).^[17] Another theory notes that for Jews to be socially successful in their peer group, expertise at Torah study has traditionally been an advantage, and since the Enlightenment, those Jews lacking the intellectual skills for this endeavour may have been more prone to assimilate into general culture, thus leaving the reproductively-isolated Jewish population. (Murray 2003, Shafran 2005) (See also Ashkenazi intelligence.)

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