Talk:Sephardic Jews/Archive 2

Hakitia
I'm new on wikipedia, but want to make an assertment here. On the table languages, shouldn't we add the hakitia, language spoken by the north african jews (Morroco, Algeria). Some books have been righten about this language (those I know are in portuguese, sorry), search for: Abraham Ramiro Bentes - Os Sefardim e a Hakitia.

Hakitia is a dialect that mixes hebrew, as order jewish dialect, arabic and spanish, diferent from ladino that is old-spanish + hebrew.

Just don't know if a I can add this by my self or had to pass by your exams to write it on the pedia. If you want a more complete information I could right a wiki as contribution. --Murilolaredo 14:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

References cleanup
I added the reference cleanup tag because the references listed should be matched up with the specific facts in the article which they document. -- Beland 20:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Red Hair More Common Amongst Sephardic Jews?
Does anyone know of any research that could verify my hypothesis that red hair is MUCH more common amongst Sephardic Jews than among the Ashkenazim (who often have black and/or very dark brown hair). This often applies to men's beards too, such as the person may not be a FULL redhead but still has some trace elements of red in their hair and/or beard. These same people also often seem have lighter colored eyes than Ashkenazi Jews (whose eyes are often brown or darker in color, like their hair). Has anyone else noticed this red-headed/lighter-eyed "trend" amongst the Sephardic population? Thanks for any info that you can provide! --205.188.116.132 07:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Personality Differences When Opposed to Ashkenazi Jews?
I've heard of Sephardi Jews being described as "fiery," "active," "angry," and even "militant" when compared to their "cooler," more saturnine Ashkenazi counterparts. Should this tidbit be included in the article or merely ignored as hearsay or stereotypes? The following text is copied/pasted direct from the "Seraph" article, and it seems to me that "Sephardi/Sephardic" and "Seraph" are closely related words and/or concepts.


 * From "Seraph":

The early medieval writer called Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite included seraphs in his Celestial Hierarchy (vii), which helped fix the fiery nature of seraphs in the medieval imagination. It is here that the Seraphim are described as being concerned with keeping Divinity in perfect order, and not limited to chanting the trisagion'. Taking his cue from writings in the Rabbinic tradition, he gave an etymology for the Seraphim as "those who kindle or make hot":
 * "The name Seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles, their heat and keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assimilation of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all- consuming flame; and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness" (Celestial Hierarchy, vii)

Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae offers a description of the nature of the Seraphim:
 * The name "Seraphim" does not come from charity only, but from the excess of charity, expressed by the word ardor or fire. Hence Dionysius (Coel. Hier. vii) expounds the name "Seraphim" according to the properties of fire, containing an excess of heat. Now in fire we may consider three things.


 * "First, the movement which is upwards and continuous. This signifies that they are borne inflexibly towards God.


 * "Secondly, the active force which is "heat," which is not found in fire simply, but exists with a certain sharpness, as being of most penetrating action, and reaching even to the smallest things, and as it were, with superabundant fervor; whereby is signified the action of these angels, exercised powerfully upon those who are subject to them, rousing them to a like fervor, and cleansing them wholly by their heat.


 * "Thirdly we consider in fire the quality of clarity, or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others."

END --172.155.32.59 12:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry but this unverified theory sounds too much like Original Research, which is not allowed in wikipedia. Regards, -- E   Asterion  u talking to me? 12:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Sephardim in the U.S.?
I came here looking for info about how many American Jews are of Sephardic ancestry. I think it's a small fraction of the overall population, but I don't really know.

Someone in the comments above wrote about Sephardim from Spain being early colonizers of South Carolina.

Can anyone else incorporate some basic info about American Sephardim?

Aroundthewayboy 16:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The info-box in the article says that there are about 150,000 Sephardic Jews in the USA; check out this link for more info. --152.163.101.7 06:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have attended services at Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia and I asked questions similar to yours. I wanted to relate what I experienced to my own background. Also, I studied American history in graduate school. I asked questions much like yours of the Rabbi and other members. I think the best answer to your question is that many of the Jewish families that came to the colonies or to the USA in the earliest days, before the larger Ashkenazi migration, may have assimilated, while most of the others eventually assimilated into the much larger Ashkenazi communities, while retaining some sense of tradition for a few generations.


 * In a few cities like Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston there are old congregations, but this does not mean that the modern members of those congregations are from families that have somehow only married others of 100% Sephardic ancestry for 300 years. Rather, a family that knows its ancestry might point to one or two great grandparents that were from old Sephardic families.  In many cases, a pride in such a family history leads a family to identify with and affiliate with one of these modern congregations. Many Jews of primarily Ashkenazi ancestry, perhaps raised in secular environments, identify with the old American heritage that these Sephardic institutions have. They come to love the culture, music, style, and so forth. Since they have lost their connection with Ashkenazi minhag, they embrace Sephardic minhag. In this sense, they are Sephardic Jews by choice. Also, some modern members have come to the US in more recent immigrations. (For example, refugees of the Shoah from Thessaloniki and Rhodes.)


 * The earliest Sephardic Jewish families co-mingled with and assimilated into Ashkenazi Jewry in the same way that the German Jews (once distinct) have today largely co-mingled with the larger population of Jews (mostly Polish and Russian) that immigrated circa 1880-1920. You see names from time to time that you know are of Sephardic origin. Families that have such names are usually very proud of them. In my father's family, one of my great great grandmothers was Portugese Sepharidic, via Holland and England. Ask one of my cousins, however, and they would have no idea what that means. I would be the only one in the entire family that could explain it, and only because I studied European and American history at one time in my life.  --Metzenberg 10:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There are many Sephardim in the US. Huge community of Iranian American Jews in LA.  128.91.27.93 03:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Spanish and Portuguese versus Oriental Sephardim
It is important to distinguish between

1. the 1492 expellees who settled in the Ottoman countries (Oriental Sephardim), whom Joseph Dan calls "medieval Sephardim" and

2. the later crypto-Jewish emigrants who reverted to Judaism in Western Europe (Spanish and Portuguese Jews), whom Joseph Dan calls "Renaissance Sephardim".

The part of the article that deals with the history after the expulsion blends information about the two groups in such a way as to suggest that all of it is true of all Sephardim. In fact the two groups followed very different trajectories (though the Haketia-speaking Moroccans were a bridge between the two). The bit about Ladino and Romances is relevant only to the Oriental group; the bit about literary circles in Amsterdam is relevant only to the S&P group. Also, nothing is said about important rabbis such as Isaac Luria, Haim Azulai (the Hida) and others who dominated the life of the Oriental group. This part of the article should be split. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 15:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Istanbul or Constantinople
Two different names have been used to refer to this same city in the article. Is there a particular reason for this?

Both occurence refer to the time after the Ottoman Empire's conquest, therefore Istanbul may be more suitable choice.

Also Salonik and Thessaloniki suffer the same inconsistency.

Alp, 13:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The European convention has generally been to use "Constantinople" for all periods until the end of the Ottoman Empire, and "Istanbul" for modern times. Similarly any book or article about Sephardim uses "Salonica" for the Ottoman period when many Jews lived there, and "Thessaloniki" when speaking of modern Greece. --Sir Mylesna Gopaleen (the da) 15:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Comments
I have to say that actually the majority of this dicussion and the complete main article are tendentious, that kind of information is a complete shame, you have to think about the emotions, dogmas, leanings, fanaticism of conceptions, ebullience of personal aspects hidden by academic speech, but you can't hidde at all, excuse but through your words everyone here showed your passions blowing up. I am sorry but I will irrelevate this article and also the majority of this comentary, I will try to find something less subjective. It doesn't care how qualified you are, but this issue doesn't depends of scientific knowledge. Some interesting information of the Sefardim is that important studies show that circa 17-35% of the brazilian people have at least one Sefardic ancestor, and the most important genealogist of Sefardic ancestry in Brazil said: the majority of the jews in Spain during the time of the persecution of 1492 became Conversos. There is also the information that circa 8% of Spanish people can be classified as jews. So don't act by your passions my good people, becuase when there is a strong will behind an argument, we can clearly mistrust it's intentions and purpouses. But gentlemans, don't forget, I don't want to appal or affront you, because being angry for any sincery criticism just because it reaches you, it is an act of imprudence. Thank you.

Image
People! Does everyone agree with the photo Arnie Gov added? It looks a bit "racialist"... to say the least! The Ogre 14:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Era-related edit.
I have undone an edit which changed a lot of century markers to Christian-specific annotation. That edit was inappropriate, as it is in direct contrevention of the agreed-upon compromise reached previously hereto, as expressed here. Tom e rtalk 06:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree. -- Asterion talk 08:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox
For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all Infobox Ethnic group infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 16:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Jewish DNA ?
There is no scientifically acceptable standard for Jewish DNA. Dr. Robert Pollack, a professor of biological sciences and director of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion at Columbia University, makes the following important observation in his online article The Fallacy of Biological Judaism

"Unlike asking "Are Jews a family?", as historians have traditionally done, geneticists seeking to advise Ashkenazic families are also, in passing, asking, "Do Jews all share the same versions of one or more genes?" -- a question with a testable, precise answer. As no two people except pairs of identical twins have exactly the same version of the human genomic text, this claim could be confirmed or rejected by a search for versions of the human genome shared by all Jews and no other people. Given the historical context of the Nazi "experiment," it is all the more remarkable that Jews all over the world have been flocking to the new technology of DNA-based diagnosis, eager to lend their individual genomes -- each a surviving data point from the terrible experiment in negative selection -- to a revisiting of this issue of biological Judaism. At a recent meeting of the Association of Orthodox Jewish scientists and the Columbia Center for the Study of Science and Religion, it became clear that Jewish curiosity has provided sufficient genetic material to give a perfectly clear negative answer: There is no support in the genomes of today's Jews for the calumnious and calamitous model of biological Judaism. Though there are many deleterious versions of genes shared within the Ashkenazic community, '''there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews. There is nothing in the human genome that makes or diagnoses a person as a Jew'''."

1.75-2 Million Sephardic Jews? LOL
Guys, if you dont know something, just dont write or change it. Only 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain over 500 years ago. Are you telling me that in 500 years the Sephardic Jewish population has growth from 200,000 to 1.75-2 millions? Are you crazy? or it is more likely that you included the Morrocans, Algerians and the other North African Jews among them (They aren't called Sephardic. They're called Mizrahi Jews). Please change this bullshit. And who said there are 5500 Sephardic Jews in Morroco, and 1,500,000 Sephardic Jews in Israel? WTF? There are no more than 200,000-300,000 Sephardic Jews in Israel. North African Jews (and Asian Jews), at least most of them, are not Sephardic Jews! They're called Mizrahi Jews!!!!!Hirschelreich 13:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Just 80,000 Sephardim in US - Impossible
There is no way that there are only 80,000 (or possibly) less than that in the United States. There are roughly 80,000 Syrian/Lebanese/Egyptian Jews in Brooklyn alone. There are at least 20,000 Persian Jews in Los Angeles. Someone has there statistics and demographics way off on this one.

The stats also seem off for Israel too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User: (talk • contribs)


 * These are probably not Sephardi Jews but Mizrahi. -- Asterion talk 18:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Difference between Sephardi and Mizrahi?
I know there isn't a liturgical one (they use the same prayerbook -- which is slightly different than the ashkenazi) 128.91.27.93 03:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

"Amada"
Why is there this single word, "amada", as a wiki link to a nonexistent page, on its own at the end of the section on "dolces"? I quote: "At their festivals they follow the Spanish custom of distributing dulces, or dolces, a confection wrapped in paper bearing a picture of the magen David (six pointed star). Amada." Is this in error? Liam Proven 08:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)