Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews: how genetically similar are these populations of Jews?

[Roma_Victrix]

I've read this and that online about the Ashkenazi (originally from Central Europe), Sephardic (originally from southwestern Europe), and Mizrahi Jews (mostly from the Middle East) and I'm still unsure about just how genetically related these different communities of Jews are to one another. How much Middle Eastern ancestry and genetics have the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews retained? How different are they from each other versus the Mizrahi? Obviously the dark-skinned Jews of Beta-Israel (i.e. Ethiopian Jews) belong to a very different population group biologically speaking, albeit still belonging to a Semitic culture. Yet it's not so clear with the first three mentioned, at least not from what I understand.

Are the matrilineal lines of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews significantly different from Mizrahi Jews, while the patrilineal lines are very similar? What sort of evidence is there for historical Jews in Europe commonly intermarrying with the gentiles? From what I understand, Jews and Christians lived in very separate communities, on account of the laws of some kingdoms and republics regarding their interaction, but also due to the central focus of the parish in the lives of ordinary people in Western societies before the modern age.

[sumskilz]

I've read this and that online about the Ashkenazi (originally from Central Europe), Sephardic (originally from southwestern Europe), and Mizrahi Jews (mostly from the Middle East) and I'm still unsure about just how genetically related these different communities of Jews are to one another. How much Middle Eastern ancestry and genetics have the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews retained? How different are they from each other versus the Mizrahi?

All three groups share roughly 50% of their genetic ancestry with each other and with North African Jews. That shared ancestry is from the same founder population, who were similar to modern Levantine religious minorities. The European ancestry of Ashkenazi is mostly North Italian. The European ancestry of Sephardi is mostly Iberian. But in both cases, the European ancestry is a snapshot of the population genetics of those areas a couple thousand years back. All of those ancestries appear to be female mediated. Some Ashkenazi Jews also have very low level northern and eastern European ancestry, male mediated, actually most likely the result of rape in most cases (based on the social circumstances).

Obviously the dark-skinned Jews of Beta-Israel (i.e. Ethiopian Jews) belong to a very different population group biologically speaking, albeit still belonging to a Semitic culture.

It has been looked at, but not the subject of a formal autosomal study. It seems Beta Israel might be descended from Yemeni Jews and locals. Yemeni Jews were mostly descended from Himyarite converts who no doubt significantly outnumbered the pre-Himyarite Yemeni Jewish population..

Are the matrilineal lines of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews significantly different from Mizrahi Jews, while the patrilineal lines are very similar?

Matrilineages mostly come from their "host" populations, the initial founding female converts. 40% of Ashkenazi Jews are direct matrilineal descendants of just four women, three of whom were Southern European, one of whom could have been Southern European or Levantine. Patrilineages are mostly identical haplogroups between the major populations, with mutation rate separation distances of about what you'd expect historically, something like 1,800 to 2,700 years. Iraqi Jews may have some of the original Levantine Jewish matrilineages, but we need ancient DNA to test that better.

What sort of evidence is there for historical Jews in Europe commonly intermarrying with the gentiles?

I don't know of any, but clearly it happened in the first generations. I'd be interested if anyone knows of any.

Some studies:

Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry

North African Jewish and non-Jewish populations form distinctive, orthogonal clusters

The population genetics of the Jewish people

The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people

No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews

EDIT: This is based on genome-wide data:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you removed their non-Leventine halves, you'd see a tight cluster of AJ, SJ, MJ, IqJ. InJ, UJ, AzJ, GJ, and SbJ.

Samaritans and Ancient DNA PCA plot comparison:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(Below) The black squares are Samaritans, descendants of the northern Kingdom of Israel (endogomous for the last ~2500 years). Jews are marked as part of "Near East". Sephardi are just above and to the left of the Samaritans, the upper left Samaritan outlier almost clusters with them. Ashkenazi Jews are to the left of the Sephardi. They are the "Near East" cluster that almost touches the tip of S_Europe (Southern Europe). The Bronze Age samples from Sidon would be just slightly to the right of the Samaritans.



The same projection with more ancient samples:



Ashkenazi Jews cluster with Cypriots, but it's because of their Near Eastern ancestry being pulled toward Southern Europe, not because of close relatedness.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I wonder how much of the genetic heritage is greek/macedonian of some kind. After all the jewish population of the two jewish states was very low, only a few thousends. First after the Hasmodeans conquered and forcefully converted large chunks of former Ptolemean and Seleucids Palestine, following the downfall of the Seleucids, they got the majority of their population. Those people were canaanites but also a large number of settlers from greece, macedon, thrace and asia minor. Many of the canaanites were also hellenisticed to a certain degree which we see in the case that the dynasty of Herodes was essentially hellenistic.

I find it very difficult to speak about ancestry in combination of religion, because that a social and cultural component that can change within a generation, while your genetic origin is something you keep.

[sumskilz]

After all the jewish population of the two jewish states was very low, only a few thousends.

Broshi and Finkelstein’s archeological survey, published in 1992, estimated the two kingdoms’ Eighth Century BCE populations as follows:

Kingdom of Judah: 110,000

Kingdom of Israel: 350,000

Archaeology indicates a dramatic growth of Jerusalem in the Iron IIB, from a traditional highlands town to a large city of up to 60 hectares (e.g., Broshi 1974; Avigad 1983, 54–60; Reich and Shukron 2003; Geva 2003). The Iron IIA settlement was probably located in the mound (tell) on the Temple Mount, with limited additional activity near the Gihon Spring (Finkelstein, Koch, and Lipschits 2011), while the fortified Iron IIB city, probably the largest in the land of Israel at that time, expanded to the entire southeastern hill (the “City of David”) and to the southwestern hill, the Jewish and Armenian Quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem and Mount Zion. Archaeology also shows that the number of settlements in Judah grew equally dramatically in the Iron IIB compared to the Iron IIA in both the hill country (from ca. 35 to ca. 120; Ofer 1994, 104–5) and the Shephelah (from ca. 20 to 275 [!]; Dagan 1992).

~ Finkelstein 2013: 154

Iron IIB is the Seventh to early Sixth Centuries BCE.

Jerusalem was depopulated in 586 and the population of the province of Yehud may have only been about 30,000 through the Babylonian Period, but Yehud was only a piece of the former Kingdom of Judah, and by that time there was already a large Judahite diaspora, not to mention Israelites.

First after the Hasmodeans conquered and forcefully converted large chunks of former Ptolemean and Seleucids Palestine, following the downfall of the Seleucids, they got the majority of their population. Those people were canaanites but also a large number of settlers from greece, macedon, thrace and asia minor. Many of the canaanites were also hellenisticed to a certain degree which we see in the case that the dynasty of Herodes was essentially hellenistic.

There isn't really evidence of this, but I assume you're thinking of Josephus:

Hyrcanus took also Dora, and Marissa, cities of Idumea; and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that countrey, if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use of the laws of the Jews. And they were so desirous of living in the countrey of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, (28) and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living. At which time therefore this befel them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews.

~Josephus Antiquities XIII.9.1

Idumea was just the southern portion of the former Kingdom of Judah that was detached and given to the Edomites. The population would have been primarily Judahites or descendants of Judahites, with an Edomite minority. Genetically speaking, Edomites are likely to have been indistinguishable from Judahites. Most of the Hellenized Canaanite cities predominately remained as such under the Hasmoneans. The archaeology is very clear on that because of the material culture related to ritual purity and idolatry prohibitions. What can actually be seen is new distinctly Jewish settlements springing up in those territories alongside Hellenized Canaanite continuity. Genetic evidence also appears to support the view that Hellenized Canaanites didn't have significant Greek or Macedonian ancestry. Significant Canaanite conversion to Judaism wouldn't be detectable genetically in modern populations. Greek or Macedonian conversion would be.

I find it very difficult to speak about ancestry in combination of religion, because that a social and cultural component that can change within a generation, while your genetic origin is something you keep.

Jews are an endogomous ethnoreligious group. The result has been very low inward gene flow prior to the second half of the Twentieth Century, with some notable exceptions.

[Roma_Victrix]

I wish that I could rep you now for these two magnificent posts, Sumskilz, but I've done so too recently, so it will have to wait!

Thanks for replying so thoroughly to my post. It pretty much answers most of my questions, aside from the evidence for marriage thing.

[Cyclops]

...
Jews are an endogomous ethnoreligious group. The result has been very low inward gene flow prior to the second half of the Twentieth Century, with some notable exceptions.

Great stuff, makes for very interesting sidelights on so many aspects of nation, race and identity.

It was truism (at last in my circle of family and friends growing up in the 1970's) that "Judaism is transmitted via the mother", that is converts and people with Jewish mothers weren't "really Jewish". Not sure where this nonsense came from, it was just something more than one person told me and I have repeated in the past, it seems baselessly. Is it something discussed in Israel or is it some goyish conspiracy theory? (I've heard soooooo many Jewish conspiracy/identity theories, including "Rupert Murdoch (!) is Jewish because of his mother was Jewish" (a rumour that ignores her Irish and Scottish ancestors-apparently De Lancey and Greene are Jewish names).

So interesting about the Samaritans, Ashkenaz and Sephardim etc. I guess a smaller less dispersed group has less trouble remaining endogamous, whereas diaspora Jews perforce intermarried.

The stuff about North Italian DNA in the Ashkenazi population is fascinating, would that be during the Roman Empire (Jewish elites and/or traders travelling to the capital/central province)? Or during its collapse (harder to explain this I guess, maybe population combination as total numbers drop catastrophically)? Or was North Italian DNA so successful in the Roman Empire it was practically ubiquitous? Roman soldiers (Sabines, Latins, Oscans, Etruscans, Kelts, Ligurians, Rhaetians) being exported across the Empire and settled on everybody's arses.

Great to have my little mind stretched a bit,m can pretend to understand the graphics but I feel smarter just looking at them.

[sumskilz]

It was truism (at last in my circle of family and friends growing up in the 1970's) that "Judaism is transmitted via the mother", that is converts and people with Jewish mothers weren't "really Jewish". Not sure where this nonsense came from, it was just something more than one person told me and I have repeated in the past, it seems baselessly. Is it something discussed in Israel or is it some goyish conspiracy theory? (I've heard soooooo many Jewish conspiracy/identity theories, including "Rupert Murdoch (!) is Jewish because of his mother was Jewish" (a rumour that ignores her Irish and Scottish ancestors-apparently De Lancey and Greene are Jewish names).

The Orthodox religious definition of a Jew, is a person who is born to a Jewish mother. A person born to a Jewish mother is always considered a Jew, even if they convert to another religion. A person who was born to a Jewish mother, but converts to another religion is considered to be a Jew in rebellion. This extends through generations, so that anyone matrilineally descended from a Jewish mother is still a Jew. A person born to a Jewish mother, but not a Jewish father is a mamzer, that is someone born to a forbidden relationship. A person born to adultery is also a mamzer. Marriage between Jews and non-Jews is not-recognized. A mamzer is not considered a second class citizen, nevertheless a mamzer is only allowed to marry another mamzer or a convert. It is considered especially important that a Levite never marry a mamzer, this is because God allegedly doesn't like guys with crushed testicles, itching diseases or descendants of mamzers touching his stuff.

A convert is a ger, which means something like "resident alien". In English Bibles, it's usually translated as "the stranger who lives among you" or "the foreigner who lives among you". A person born to a ger is Jewish because they have a Jewish nefesh, which is usually translated as "soul", mostly because Jews don't realize the Christian concept of soul is very different from nefesh, and because there isn't any English word like it. It's sort like the usage of soul in English, when you say someone's really got soul, or sings soulfully. Conversion is discouraged. In fact, a Rabbi is obligated to try to convince a potential convert to give up at least three times. There is no need for a non-Jew to become a Jew in order to be considered righteous in the eyes of God. Only the seven laws of Noah are considered to be applicable to non-Jews, whereas Jews are supposed to follow 613 commandments.

The modern non-Orthodox Jewish movements either no longer recognize the mamzer concept (Reform) or have taken on a don't ask don't tell policy (Conservative), but you can see how it would have seriously reduced inward gene flow. In many places historically, the non-Jewish ruling population also made conversion to Judaism or marrying a Jew a capital crime.

The matrilineal thing though, is a bit of a historical mystery. There is plenty of evidence that Judaism was patrilineal in the Biblical Period. Formal conversion of non-Jewish spouses is also never mentioned in pre-Rabbinic texts, though marrying non-Jewish women was frowned upon and supposedly banned altogether in the Fifth Century BCE. The matrilineal rule first appears in the Mishnah compiled in the First and Second Centuries CE. What it looks like is matrilineality was a Rabbinic innovation, but Rabbinic Judaism didn’t become predominate until about the Sixth Century CE, meaning the diaspora communities were established before that. If formal conversions didn’t really exist for non-Jewish wives back in the day, it’s a real possibility to the majority of Jews aren’t technically Jews according to Halacha.

The stuff about North Italian DNA in the Ashkenazi population is fascinating, would that be during the Roman Empire (Jewish elites and/or traders travelling to the capital/central province)? Or during its collapse (harder to explain this I guess, maybe population combination as total numbers drop catastrophically)? Or was North Italian DNA so successful in the Roman Empire it was practically ubiquitous? Roman soldiers (Sabines, Latins, Oscans, Etruscans, Kelts, Ligurians, Rhaetians) being exported across the Empire and settled on everybody's arses.

Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a Jewish community that was established when Jews moved into Lotharingia in the Ninth Century from other parts of the Carolingian Empire. Yiddish evolved from a High German dialect and shows early influences of Hebrew, Aramaic, Old French and Old Italian, so there's a clue.

Also:

The laws of Constantius (337-361), the second selection, forbid intermarriage between Jewish men and Christian women. A generation later, in 388, all marriages between Jews and Christians were forbidden. Constantius also did away with the right of Jews to possess slaves. This prohibition to trade in and to keep slaves at a time when slave labor was common was not merely an attempt to arrest conversion to Judaism; it was also a blow at the economic life of the Jew. It put him at a disadvantage with his Christian competitor to whom this economic privilege was assured.

Jewish History Sourcebook: Jews and the Later Roman Law 315-531 CE

Genetically, it's quite clear that the Ashkenazi founding population was very small, over the whole of the Ashkenazi genetic history, only about 350 genetically distinct individuals contributed to the population genome, meaning the founding population was a subset of that. A non-genetically distinct person would be someone whose DNA was limited to some combination of individuals from that ~350.

[Roma_Victrix]

I'm angry right now, because I am still unable to rep you, Sumskilz. That was a post par excellence as far as I'm concerned. I had never heard the term mamzer before; I learn something new everyday. Thanks for the Jewish History Sourcebook link as well!

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

But my question would be since when is the linage after the mother practiced? It is clear that in the 20th century this is a big thing, but how about the 3th and 2th century BC when the jewish religion started to become canonized and most of the text is getting written. I am still not entirely convinced that there wasn't forceful converting. The Hasmoneans don't strike be as tolerant at all.

[Roma_Victrix]

But my question would be since when is the linage after the mother practiced? It is clear that in the 20th century this is a big thing, but how about the 3th and 2th century BC when the jewish religion started to become canonized and most of the text is getting written. I am still not entirely convinced that there wasn't forceful converting. The Hasmoneans don't strike be as tolerant at all.

Those ordinal numbers should be rendered as 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, as it is spelled out in English ("third" and "second").

I think Sumskilz already answered your question: "The matrilineal rule first appears in the Mishnah compiled in the First and Second Centuries CE. What it looks like is matrilineality was a Rabbinic innovation, but Rabbinic Judaism didn’t become predominate until about the Sixth Century CE, meaning the diaspora communities were established before that."

[Cyclops]

The Orthodox religious definition of a Jew, is a person who is born to a Jewish mother....

Very clear, thx. Now you tell me a bell rings from two decades ago, religious studies 101.

Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a Jewish community that was established when Jews moved into Lotharingia in the Ninth Century from other parts of the Carolingian Empire. Yiddish evolved from a High German dialect and shows early influences of Hebrew, Aramaic, Old French and Old Italian, so there's a clue.

Also:

Jewish History Sourcebook: Jews and the Later Roman Law 315-531 CE

Genetically, it's quite clear that the Ashkenazi founding population was very small, over the whole of the Ashkenazi genetic history, only about 350 genetically distinct individuals contributed to the population genome, meaning the founding population was a subset of that. A non-genetically distinct person would be someone whose DNA was limited to some combination of individuals from that ~350.

That is freaking amazing: fancy such a large group descending from a tiny core population. I can only guess at the causes of their success, maybe some sexy MFs in the group? More likely they had intellectual skills that made them indispensable in the Early Middle Ages.

Its very clear with the collapse of the West literacy as well as specialised admin and mercantile knowledge receded from a widespread skill pool taught formally and informally in multiple loci by multiple groups to a very narrow groups such as well educated post roman elites (at least the non-Barbaric ones) and especially the clergy. Irish monks enjoyed phenomenal success converting Germanic and Scandinavian pagans and I think its because they brought access to a prestige network and sophisticated skills for rulers interested in doing more than just ruling the one rowdy longhouse. "I'll get more from the market tax on a major entrepot than I would from two years pillaging? Tell me more [strokes blood matted beard]"

However Ashkenazi Jews cannot have offered access to prestige networks because their religion was non inclusive and in any case reviled or at best tolerated. I guess they offered international trade contacts, probably banking ones as well I parallel with the Italian houses but this is an obvious stereotype "happy merchant/extortionate banker" and it doesn't explain the numbers. I think they must have brought work-a-day clerical skills as well which would offer not a few palatial reproduction sites, but rather a lot of low to mid level admin jobs in emerging statlets and states. So not five merchant princes having ten kids each, but a hundred ordinary Joes having 3 kids each.

The galaxy of German free cities that sparkled from the Rhine to the Neva would be a seed bed for sensible discreet Jewish penmen, who would pose no threat to fat burghers and guildmeisters looking for able clerks who wouldn't try to replace them at the next election (no Jews on the council!) or dob them into the bishop as those equally skilled monks would. I mean the monks probably were probably better at gorgeous marginalia, and don't kid yourself they weren't cunning about money (the monasteries of Europe grasped monopolies and other extortionate rorts in industry, trade and commerce everywhere) so there'd be work for them for sure especially early on, and increasingly a class of professional Christian laymen as well, but definitely decent jobs for literate Jews (as there would be down to the K und K in Vienna, and Second Reich Berlin).

In a sense the Jews may have been the eunuchs (in the sense that they did not reproduce in a way that threatened incumbent interests) or contract workers (in that as the evil Edward I proved they could be removed at a moment's notice on a large scale or small without moral consequences unlike Christian workers who were subject to some bizarre feudal customary rights that did not all go the lord's way) of the emerging post Roman state and especially civic structures of Europe.

My guess is the rural Jews of the shtetls are the product of medieval expulsions of civic populations: they became farmers later. Then again if you farm well you can have lots of kids, so maybe they were just good farmers.

[sumskilz]

But my question would be since when is the linage after the mother practiced? It is clear that in the 20th century this is a big thing, but how about the 3th and 2th century BC when the jewish religion started to become canonized and most of the text is getting written. I am still not entirely convinced that there wasn't forceful converting. The Hasmoneans don't strike be as tolerant at all.

The Hasmonians seem to have had two parallel policies. They were tolerant of the Hellenized coastal cities, but ruthless when it came to the core lands that had formerly constituted Judah and Israel. This was probably based on their legitimizing ideology which involved reclaiming the lands of Israel which historically belonged to the descendants of Israel (Jacob). Geographically, this may have been conceived of in terms of the Book of Joshua rather than Genesis, or at least their pattern of destructive conquests matched the former. With that ideology in mind, forced conversions of people not considered to be "the children of Israel" wouldn't make much sense, but expulsions, the destruction of "rebellious" cities and the establishment of new Jewish settlements would, and that's what appears to have happened in Idumea, Samaria, and Galilee, whereas the Hellenized Philistine and Phoenician lands were left to their own ways, and their wealth taxed. Some Idumeans and Itureans converted, but these were rural minorities in formerly Israelite land. There is debate about whether the conversions were forced. Allegedly, a convert or be expelled ultimatum was give to the Idumeans, but it has also been argued somewhat convincingly that these were people who had grievances with their neighbors, and so chose to ally themselves with the Hasmoneans. Explaining why Josephus would have said otherwise is another debate. The fact that members of these ethnicities quickly rose to the top of the Hasmonean military command structure has been one piece of evidence said to speak against against their having been forcibly converted. In any case, as far as genetics are concerned. Idumeans and Itureans were likely indistinguishable from Judahites.

This map is based on text confirmed by archaeology:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The "idolatrous" temples on the coast were left intact, while the Samaritan temple of Yahweh on Mount Gerizim was destroyed.

In a sense the Jews may have been the eunuchs (in the sense that they did not reproduce in a way that threatened incumbent interests) or contract workers (in that as the evil Edward I proved they could be removed at a moment's notice on a large scale or small without moral consequences unlike Christian workers who were subject to some bizarre feudal customary rights that did not all go the lord's way) of the emerging post Roman state and especially civic structures of Europe.

The eunuchs niche is a good analogy. Jews in Muslim countries had similar roles, but without a monopoly, since Copts and Armenians were just as suitable from the ruler's perspective.

[Cyclops]

...
The eunuchs niche is a good analogy. Jews in Muslim countries had similar roles, but without a monopoly, since Copts and Armenians were just as suitable from the ruler's perspective.

That was the case even as late as the Ottoman state, where Rum, Armenians, Jews and IIRC Albanians all enjoyed periods of over representation in state offices (typically followed by a fall from grace once enough of a particular group gained enough power to be seen as a threat).

Very interesting stuff, I suppose Iberian Jews who formed the basis of the Sephardim never formed a peasant/farming/shtetl-equivalent culture in Iberia? Maybe that explains the fact they are only 2 million vs 10+ million Ashkenaz, they never bedded down a widespread peasant class to be expanded by the farming revolution in 19th century Europe. Still both groups were a great success, but the Ashkenazi seem to have come from a less friendly start in a poorer (at that time) region from a tiny base. Amazing story.

[sumskilz]

Very interesting stuff, I suppose Iberian Jews who formed the basis of the Sephardim never formed a peasant/farming/shtetl-equivalent culture in Iberia? Maybe that explains the fact they are only 2 million vs 10+ million Ashkenaz, they never bedded down a widespread peasant class to be expanded by the farming revolution in 19th century Europe. Still both groups were a great success, but the Ashkenazi seem to have come from a less friendly start in a poorer (at that time) region from a tiny base. Amazing story.

As far I know, Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire continued to be merchants and craftsmen as they had been in Iberia. Typical Ladino surnames imply the same kind of trades as Yiddish ones do, but with a more poetic style. Compare Goldman to Ben-Joya (Son of a Jewel).

Regarding shtetls, they weren't actually farming communities. I was pretty sure that was the case, because part of Zionism was the novel idea that Jews would actually farm, but I had to look it up to be sure.

Translated from the Hebrew Wikipedia:

The typical shtetl numbered hundreds to a few thousand inhabitants, and was inhabited by half or even more by Jews - artisans, merchants , and shopkeepers. In many cases, the main street in the town and the shops in the center of the Jewish town belonged to Jews or were leased to them, and they lived and ran the trade there. Generally speaking, reasonable neighborly relations were maintained with gentiles among the inhabitants of the town and the villages in the region, who were not based on much love but on the basis of mutual economic dependence. Due to the distance of the villages from the cities and the lack of means of transportation, the shtetl served as a connecting link between the surrounding villages and the district city. Once or twice a week, during the market , the villagers used to come to town, where they could sell their produce, buy groceries, and repair their tools. The market square was the most important place in the economic life of the shtetl - the heart of the town - and around it were built houses of residents and public institutions.

Encyclopedia Judaica:

The market and marketplace were the source of livelihood and the meeting place with non-Jewish neighbors. The shtetl Jews served as middlemen between the big city and village economy. They brought urban products to the Polish, Ukrainian, or Romanian peasant who visited the market, or as peddlers bought from him the agricultural produce of the villages which they sold in the city. The financial scale of these transactions was limited. Only a few Jews in the shtetl engaged in enterprises on a larger scale involving substantial capital. The majority of the shtetl population lived in poverty, where the major problem was to earn enough during the week in order to be able to buy a chicken or a fish for Sabbath, or to save up enough money for Passover matzot. To make a living the shtetl Jew tried his hand at anything and often at a number of things. Trades and occupations could vary with the season, as well as with a special opportunity encountered at the marketplace. Men and women, old and young, were daily involved in the difficult task of parnose ("livelihood"). Often women and children remained in charge of the stall or the store, while men traveled in the area looking for bargains or peddling city wares.

Etymology trivia, whereas Sepharad means Iberia in Hebrew, Ashkenaz means Scythia. Presumably it was originally Aškuz, same as in Akkadian, but apparently there was a scribal error at some point that turned the u (ו) into an n (נ), that is Aškuz to Ašknz.

[Abdülmecid I]

As far I know, Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire continued to be merchants and craftsmen as they had been in Iberia. Typical Ladino surnames imply the same kind of trades as Yiddish ones do, but with a more poetic style. Compare Goldman to Ben-Joya (Son of a Jewel).

Sephardi Jews, who also emigrated from the Italian Peninsula, mainly from the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, indeed preferred to establish themselves in major trading ports, where crafting and mercantile activities were encouraged, so they mostly belonged to the middle and upper classes, but there's a major exception to the rule, the city of Selanik (currently Greek Thessalonica). Selanik was also obviously attractive to commerce and craft industry, but the Jewish immigration was so massive, considering that Jews were the majority (albeit probably not an absolute one), that it was practically impossible for these sectors of the economy to absorb all of them. Many of them joined the urban proletariat and served as port workers for example, a tendency which was further enforced by the gradual decline of Ottoman commerce, in comparison with its European competitors, and a slow industrialization of the Ottoman economy. Factories began to multiply, often owned by Jewish magnates and equally often employing Jewish workers.

The role of the city's Jews in the industry is apparent thought the popularity of Marxist ideas, which lead to the creation of the Socialist Worker's Federation, whose founder was Avraam Benaroya. Perhaps the endorsement of socialism by a portion of the Jewish proletariat explains why Zionism was not particularly attractive there (I think that even Theodor Herzl himself was very disappointed in how indifferent the Ottoman Jews were to the concept of an Israelite nation-state), while the financial elite was more keen on the Westernization adopted by the Alliance. Even after the loss of Selanik to Greece, the Jewish proletariat continued to have a significant presence, which exacerbated the tensions between it and a part of the Greek proletariat from Asia Minor, which had replaced the Muslim residents of the city after the population exchange in 1923. It's not a coincidence that, according to the Wikipedia article, the National Union of Greece, essentially the Greek Nazi party before the war, gathered a lot of support there, despite its otherwise total lack of importance, by exploiting the competition between the Jewish and Greek (or more accurately Christian) poorest segments of society, for jobs and high salaries after the catastrophic crisis of 1929. However, Selanik was an exceptional case which confirmed the rule and alone it could not influence the number of Sephardi Jews, but it is interesting, in my opinion, to notice the similarities between that Ottoman port and the various Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, from their contribution to the economy to the rise of Antisemitism and Nazism, more specifically.

[Cyclops]

...
Regarding shtetls, they weren't actually farming communities. ...

See this is why I post here, to air my ignorance and have it shot down.

Thanks for correcting my error. I had formed the view Ashkenazi Jews included many families with earth under their fingernails, but it seems they were in the services role even in Eastern Europe. I'm guessing their growth in numbers was not then due directly to the agricultural revolution, but rather piggybacked on the expansion of rural centres that accompanied the demographic explosion in the 19th century.

...

The role of the city's Jews in the industry is apparent thought the popularity of Marxist ideas, which lead to the creation of the Socialist Worker's Federation, whose founder was Avraam Benaroya. Perhaps the endorsement of socialism by a portion of the Jewish proletariat explains why Zionism was not particularly attractive there (I think that even Theodor Herzl himself was very disappointed in how indifferent the Ottoman Jews were to the concept of an Israelite nation-state), while the financial elite was more keen on the Westernization adopted by the Alliance. ...

It gives the lie to the notion of "International Jewry" as a monolith. Liberal ideology must have appealed to many Jews, as they strained against the built in prejudice of Ancien Regime structures, but there is no identity between Socialism and Judaism.

The tragedy of Thessalonica in WWII is on a scale with so many of the communities destroyed in Poland etc: the multi ethnic Empires of Romanov, Osman and Hapsburg for all their sins had managed to accommodate many communities coexisting peacefully. Nationalism cannot tolerate such contamination.