Sephardic Judiasm

When I think of Sephardic Jews, I think of the darker ones, the ones with a ethnic traditions, the different ones. It is really interesting to me that they are so different from the Ashkenazi Jews; I think the history is very interesting in how they came to be so different from one another in a religion that is such a minority. They adopted many traditions and were influenced greatly in many aspects by the areas in which they came from, especially in their language and in their food and cooking.

Ashkenazi Jews are from France, Germany, and Eastern Europe. Sephardic Jews are the Jews of Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East. Many American Jews today are Ashkenazi, although it is interesting that most of the early Jewish settlers in this country were Sephardic and that the first congregation in North America was Shearith Israel which was founded in 1684 in New York and was Sephardic. For the most part, Sephardic Jews follow orthodox laws, but have some of their own traditions and customs that are not part of Ashkenazi orthodoxy.

I have a friend whose dad is Moroccan and she came home with me for Rosh Hashanah last year and was so surprised about the food we ate, she had never eaten any of it before, but all of these foods were things I typically considered to be normal Jewish foods, I never realized that her customs and traditions were so different. I find all of this to be very interesting and would love to learn more about the differences in these two cultures that lie within this minority religion.