From: sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal)
Subject: Re: Ashkenazi/Sephardic rift?
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 19:17:00 GMT

In article <emc.719081806@noonian>, emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
> When Israel first started up in 1948-49, there was a serious
> rift between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.  Sephardic Jews
> were looked upon as uneducated commoners while the Ashkenazi
> Jews were seen as stuffy and lacking the common touch.
> 
> When I grew up in Israel, "intermarriage" between the two groups
> was rare and frowned upon. (In those days my father who grew up
> in Turkey and spoke Ladino, had difficulty even marrying my mother
> who grew up in Tunisia and spoke Arabic).  Slowly however things
> evolved.  White Europeans living in Israel got a tan, and their
> children began to speak with the recognized modern Hebrew intonation.
> Sephardic children picked up more education than had been unavailable
> in Arabic countries (although in Spain, 500 years earlier, Sephardic
> education was at its height) and their children began to speak
> with the same intonation.
> 
> Before you knew it. Sepahrdim where marrying Ashkenazim.  It even
> happened in my family :-).  It seems that the brunt of that early
> rift is pretty well gone.  Certainly among the educated.  When I
> studied at the Hebrew University some years ago I saw none of 
> these problems.
> 
> Now it seems we are back to square one.  Russians won't talk to
> Ethiopians.  The latter think that Russians are pushy and loud while
> Ethiopians are considered crude, uncouth and smelly.
> 
> Any speculation as to how long this rift will last?
> 
> 

First of all, the Ashkenazim who were originally in Israel were
reasonably religious, not all Orthodox, but recognizably Jewish.
The recent Russian immigrants are 2-3 generations removed from
most religious life thanks to Lenin and Stalin.  The Ethiopians
on the other hand practice a very ancient strain of Judaism,
not nearly as close to Ashkenazi practice as Sephardi practice.
Much more so than the Ashke-Sephar rift, this will slow a coming
together with all Israelis I believe.

Second, the Russians are extremely well educated, on average
probably better than Israelis.  Despite their economic problems,
Russia is still a very advanced nation compared to most of the world.
The Ethiopians come from a very backward country, and the majority
of them were in rural farm districts.  That is a very wide
cultural gap to bridge.  Much wider than between a Jew from
Warsaw and a Jew from Damascus, Baghdad or Cairo (assuming
pre-1945).

Also, although Arab countries had predominantly Sephardic
populations, there were significant Ashkenazi minorities
in Egypt (heck the founder of the Egyptian socialist party
was named Rosenthal!), Turkey and of course in the Balkans where most
European Sephardim came from.  Ashkenazim and Sephardim
didn't develop in a vacuum apart from one another before
Israel either.  French Jews commonly moved to Algieria,
and Ashkenazi rabbis once studied in Spain as
did Sephardi rabbis study in France and Germany.
I think the overall contact with the Ethiopians was far
less over the years for both Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
You should also consider that in Eastern Europe there were
also Sephardic communities.  Zamosc and Krakow both had
Sephardim, as did Bucharest, Constanta and Odessa.  There is an
Abrabanel family from the Ukraine, Hamburgs Jewish community
was re-constituted with Portuguese Marranos in the late 16th
century and includes a family named Spanier
(obviously German for Spaniard).  In Europe, the two groups
knew and lived with one another, inter-marrying frequently.

My opinion, it will take a generation for the Ethiopians to
level their skill and education level with the rest of Israeli
society (assuming they want to).  It will take much less
time for the Russians to become accustomed to Israeli life,
but to become true Israelis will probably take the same
generation.  Didn't it take roughly a generation for
the Israeli Sephardim and Ashkenazim to do the same?

Frankly, if you took the Jewish community of the New York area and
dumped it in Tel Aviv, it would take us a while to get used
to Israel, and really fit in and contribute as we do here.
Though I suspect English is the second language of Israel.

		Seth Rosenthal

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own not my employers'.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish