User:Eskenasi

History of the Eskenasy(i) family written by Chaplain Polly Eskenasy, Ph.D.

The Hebrew name Ashkenaz is in the Bible, Genesis 10:3. He was the great-grandson of Noah This section of the Bible tells of the generations that followed Noah. They also signify different parts of the world. Ashkenaz came to mean "north", or "Germany." It may have derived from an Indo-Aryan name, Saka--the name that the ancient Scythians were called as they came south into Iran.

Jews who moved into northern Europe were called "Ashkenazi." (The -i at the end of a Semitic word (Hebrew or Arabic, for instance), signifies that a person, or thing, comes from a certain family or region.) During the "golden age" of Islamic Spain, starting in about the 9th century, (4th Islamic century), many Jews moved into Spain. Spain, in Hebrew, is Sepharad. Along with the Islamic greatness, Jews in Spain also flourished. After the expulsion from Spain, in 1492, Spanish Jews were called Sephardi.

Sephardic Jews were very educated and were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire, where they were oftenemployed in trade or banking.

Northern European Jews who moved into Spain were called Askenazi, (because the Hebrew letter /shin/ sound corresponds to the Arabic letter /sin/). Those who went into the Ottoman Empire had another change to the name. The short a's became short e's. So the initial A became an E; the second a is a long sound.(I'm not sure how the z became s in our case.)

There aren't too many people in the US with our name. But, in the past ten years, we have been bumping into others. There are many with the name in Istanbul. When my father was there in the 60's, he said there was a whole page of Eskenasy's--and also a large number of Isaac Eskenasy's. Also, in many Spanish speaking countries, there are varieties of the name--such as Ashquenazi, ... .