Ashkenaz

Ashkenaz, the name of a northern people mentioned in the table of races given in Gen. x., located in Armenia or its neighbourhood. The later Jews identified it with Germany. At the present day, the Polish and German Jews are termed Ashkenazim, as opposed to the Sephardim, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. They have different synagogues, in which a somewhat different ritual and a different pronunciation of Hebrew are used, though there is no doctrinal distinction, nor now any disinclination to social intercourse and intermarriage.