Who are Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews?
Ashkenazic Jews are the Jews of Germany, France, and Eastern Europe and their descendants. Sephardic Jews are the Jews of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, North Africa and the Middle East and their descendants.
Until the 1400s, the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and the Middle East were all controlled by Muslims, who generally allowed Jews to move freely throughout the region. When the Jews were expelled by Christian rulers from Spain in 1492, many of them were absorbed into existing communities in Holland, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, and North Africa and the Middle East.
The word "Ashkenazic" is derived from the Hebrew word for Germany and "Sephardic" from the Hebrew word for Spain.
The beliefs of Sephardic Judaism are basically in accord with those of Orthodox Judaism, though Sephardic interpretations of Jewish Law (halakhah) are somewhat different from Ashkenazic ones. One of these differences relates to the holiday of Pesach (Passover): Sephardic Jews may eat rice, corn, peanuts and beans during this holiday, while Ashkenazic Jews avoid them.
Historically, Sephardic Jews have been more integrated into the local non-Jewish culture than Ashkenazic Jews. In the Christian lands where Ashkenazic Judaism flourished, the tension between Christians and Jews was great, and Jews tended to be isolated from their non-Jewish neighbors. In the Islamic lands where Sephardic Judaism developed, there was less segregation and oppression. Sephardic Jewish thought and culture was strongly influenced by Muslim and Greek philosophy and science.
Sephardic prayer services are somewhat different from Ashkenazic ones, and they use different melodies in their services. Sephardic Jews also have different holiday customs and different traditional foods.
The Yiddish language, which many people think of as the international language of Judaism, is really the language of Ashkenazic Jews. Sephardic Jews had their own international language: Ladino, which was based on Spanish and Hebrew in the same way that Yiddish was based on German and Hebrew.