VAMOS CONHECER O JUDAISMO ASQUENAZITA! Quem são os judeus?

Shalom and welcome back to Israel with Aline! Judaism is a religion that has within it several groups, and they live in different places around the world, and each one has its own culture with its own food, its own clothing and even its own language. And today we are going to talk about one of these groups, the Ashkenazim Jews, who they are, how they came about, and also what their customs are, and I will also tell you about my family, since I am also an Ashkenazim Jew. So if you guys are ready, let’s get started! Let’s start two thousand years ago, when most Jews lived in Judea, where the State of Israel is today. Until the Jewish rebellions against the Romans take place, and the Romans will destroy Judea and expel most of the Jews from their land, and so the Jews spread throughout the world, and also join the Jewish communities that already existed in some places: like Babylon, Rome, Greece, Yemen and others. And with the passage of time, and due to their geographical distance, each community will create its own culture, traditions and language. Although they continue to pray always in Hebrew. And despite their differences, communities keep their roots and religion in common. Some of these communities are the Sephardic Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, the Betas Israel, which are the Jews from Ethiopia, by the way, there is a video here on the channel about them, also the Yemenite Jews, as the name suggests they come from Yemen, and the Ashkenazim Jews, in Central and Eastern Europe and we are going to talk about them today. The Ashkenazi Jews also known as Ashkenazites, how do they get to Europe? There are Jews living in Europe since the time of the Roman
Empire; some arrived as merchants, others arrived as refugees from the destruction of Judea, and also some were taken as slaves by the Romans and then they gained their freedom. And that’s why we have Jewish archaeological finds in Europe since the first centuries, for example these Jewish tombs that were found throughout Europe and also by the Emperor Constantine’s own writings when he sends a letter in the year 321 to the city of Cologne, in Germany, saying that the Jews should be included in the city’s City Council, which shows us that there was already an organized Jewish Community there. And Germany and France become the center and the heart of the Ashkenazi Community; and there we see the culture flourish. The language spoken was Yiddish, which is a Germanic dialect with strong Hebrew and Aramaic influences. Here written now is a text in Yiddish, and you can see that the alphabet is the same as the Hebrew alphabet. And Yiddish was the language I spoke part of my childhood with my grandparents, and also in our house there was always traditional Yiddish music, the most famous of all is Klezmer and here a little bit of Klezmer music, you can see that it uses a lot of clarinet, violin, accordion and other instruments. And of course it’s sung in Yiddish, and Klezmer also has its traditional dances that you can see here, my favorite is when they dance with the bottles on their heads, The garments are adapted to the cold climate of Europe, for example, this fur hat is called Shtreimel and this long coat is called Bekishe. The traditional cuisine has meals such as Gefilte Fish, which are fish cakes that are eaten with Chrein, a strong root vegetable. There are also dishes like Kugel, which are pies made either with potatoes or with noodles, and my favorite is varenikes, but not just any varenikes, but the varenikes of my grandmother Iara. And in these recipes we see the influence of the local gastronomy, but always keeping the Jewish dietary laws called kosher food, where pork, seafood and other prohibited foods are not eaten. But the life for Jews in central Europe was not always easy because of anti-Semitism, and because of this many Jews began to migrate to Eastern Europe, especially to Poland. And anti-Semitism in central Europe will culminate in the expulsion of Jews from some countries, in the 13th century from England, in the 14th century from France, and in the 15th century from Germany itself. And so the center of the Ashkenazi world became Poland, where their culture continued to exist, but anti-Semitism also continues to exist there, and that is why many emigrate to the Americas, and also to the land of Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries, and that was also how part of my family arrived in Brazil. But the worst of the anti-Semitism was still to come; in the Second World War. Nine million seven hundred thousand Jews lived in Europe at the time, six million of them were going to be murdered in the holoc@ust, and Poland, which was the heart of the Ashkenazi community, had three million three hundred thousand people, ninety percent of the community will disappear. The Ashkenazi culture is still alive in communities around the world, among them Orthodox communities here in Israel, and communities also in the United States, where Yiddish is spoken to this day, and there is even a theater on Broadway of the Violinist on the Roof in Yiddish, and for those who didn’t watch it, I highly recommend a movie with the same name. And Yiddish is still alive in literature, including in 1978 the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer won a Nobel Prize for a book written in Yiddish. Avrum Leib Burstein, singing in Yiddish the song “Gefilte Fish” Shalom to everyone we Asquenazes have a long tradition of more than a thousand years of human warmth and rich culture, with delicious cuisine, a rich language and the Klezmer music of the heart. From our Klezmer basement in Jerusalem, I wish you all much joy and health. And subscribe to our channel for more videos, direct from Israel! I hope you enjoyed knowing a little bit about the Ashkenazi culture, a kiss, Shalom and see you next time!