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| OHCC LIVING | FEBRUARY 2023 | 27 Yiddish Club More Than One Flavor of Judaism Despite competition from over 1,000 ice cream flavors in the U.S., the old standards of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry still rank among the top five favorites (according to the International Dairy Foods Association, June 2022). When politicians and social experts study the makeup of the American Jewish community, they also find more than one 'flavor.' How so? Religiously, American Jews generally follow one of three main branches of Judaism: • Orthodox — Follows strict rabbinical interpretation of Jewish law and its traditional customs and observances guided by the Torah. Example: Torah law prohibits followers from performing any work on Sabbath. • Conservative — Seeks to preserve Jewish tradition and rituals but has a more flexible approach to interpretations of Jewish law. • Reform — Modernized traditional Jewish beliefs, laws and practices to better adapt Judaism to the modern social and cultural world. Reform Judaism is the largest group at 35 percent in US, followed by Conservative at 18 percent and Orthodox at 10 percent. Minor Jewish groups like Reconstructionist and Renewal account for six percent. Some 30 percent of U.S. Jews do not identify with any denomination and remain unaffiliated with any temple or synagogue. Now if this isn't confusing enough, there are also several ancestral groups of Jewish heritage to which American Jews are born into. The two main ones are: • Ashkenazi Jews — Most American Jews today are 'Ashkenazim', descended from Jews who emigrated from Germany, France, Russia and Eastern Europe from mid-1800s to early 1900s. Yiddish is their original language, based on German and Hebrew. 'Ashkenazi' is the Hebrew word for Germany. Traditional foods: gefilte fish, chopped liver, borscht, etc. • Sephardic Jews — Descendants of Jews from Spain, Portugal, Greece. Turkey, North Africa and Middle East. 'Sepharad' is the Hebrew word for Spain. Most of the early settlers of North America were Sephardic, who fled Europe during the Spanish expulsion of 1492, banning Jews from practicing their religion. Many fled or converted to Catholicism to appease the ruling king. The first Jewish congregation in North America, Shearith Israel founded in 1684, is still an active Sephardic synagogue in New York. The original founders were Spanish and Portuguese refugees from Brazil. Sephardics' traditional language is Ladino, based on Spanish and Hebrew. Traditional foods are Mediterranean with olive oil as a staple, delicacies like stuffed grape leaves and pastries using phyllo dough. About three percent of American Jews self-identify as Sephardic, with the largest US Sephardic communities being found in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. On a personal level, my own two daughters are half Sephardic and half Ashkenazic, having grown up in Seattle and Portland. Both myself and my two brothers married Sephardic girls in Seattle, as did several of my college friends. An interesting mix of cultures! So, there is lots of variety to explore when it comes to the overall Jewish Community — just like ice cream! ~ Harv Jaffe

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