UGANDA

• The 1964 musical gives audiences a window into Yiddish-speaking, rural Jewish life in 19th-century Europe.
• When most Americans think of Jews, they think of Ashkenazi Jews: a term that refers to people of eastern and northern European Jewish culture.
• While Ashkenazi Jews do make up the majority of American Jews, the Jewish world is much more diverse that this picture suggests – including in the United States.

From Iberia to the world

• Spain and Portugal expelled Jewish inhabitants in the late 1400s, sending refugees fleeing around the Mediterranean and further north in Europe.
• Sephardic Jews often have different customs than Ashkenazi Jews, including melodies for prayers, foods and forms of observance.

New word, old communities

• It is a relatively new term, but describes communities with centuries of history.
• Hundreds of thousands of Jews from places other than Europe moved to Israel during the state’s early years in the mid-20th century.
• These groups – from Moroccan, Iraqi, Egyptian, Syrian and “Yemenite” communities, among others – came to be referred to as Mizrahi.
• Some people in the U.S. identify as Mizrahi Jews, and there have been Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in the U.S. since the Colonial period.

Jews of color

• In addition to these broader categories, 5% to 15% of American Jews identify as Jews of color.
• But researchers know that more and more Jews identify as Jews of color.
• Still other Jews of color were adopted into Jewish families.
• As Ashkenazi Jews make up the majority of American Jews, these children are usually adopted into homes that reflect Ashkenazi approaches to Jewish life.

Choosing Judaism

• Many Jews of color report that people often assume that they converted to Judaism as adults.
• In addition, the reality remains that the majority of Jews of color are not converts to Judaism.

‘What brings you here?’