Ashkephardi

[…] if we Westerners were to try to adopt the Sephardi pronunciation, the result would probably be a pronunciation which was neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi but, as some wit had suggested, “Ashkephardi”.

Some families are giving up making haroset — a combined ‘Ashkephardi’ sort with both apples and dates is sold in jars in Israeli supermarkets.

My children, unlike me, my parents and grandparents, are not fully Sephardi. As their father is an Ashkenazi Jew, Zara and Asher are ‘Ashkephardi’: part Sephardi, part Ashkenazi.

Max Guttman (ze/zir/zirs) is a non-binary transgender and Ashkephardi Jewish educator, artist and writer.

Most of those who considered themselves Sephardim, the old-timers, were actually not of Iberian stock, but were of Ashkenazic background, descendants of earlier Ashkenazic settlers who had accepted the Sephardic worship style as the American style. The Ashkephardim, as they may be called, were middle-class Jews with an ethos of their own; they looked down on the newcomers.

She always jokingly called me her “little Ashkephardi.”

You, my friend, are a Sephardi, an Ashkenazi boundary crosser, the multicultural Ashkephardi, an ally to all … or just someone with a darn good vocabulary and possibly a belly to boot!