Definition of "Ashkenazim"

Ashkenazim and Sephardim: Their Relations, Differences, and Problems as Reflected in the Rabbinical Responsa.

1993: Hirsch Jakob Zimmels, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, main title (KTAV Publishing House; 9780881254914)

Following the return of Jews to England in the second half of the seventeenth century, the Ashkenazim at first worshipped with the Sephardim, but hardly any were admitted to membership in the Sephardic congregation. In 1679 the Sephardim prohibited Ashkenazim from being called to the Torah, receiving any honors, voting, holding office or even making contributions without express permission. By 1690 the Ashkenazim began to worship separately, and in 1694 the leaders of the Sephardic congregation decreed that “the Synagogue Saar Asamaim shall only serve for the Jews of our Portuguese and Spanish nation . . and the Jews of other nations that may come shall be admitted to say prayers if it seems good to the gentlemen of Mahamad.” This regulation merely affirmed one adopted thirty years before, which required the approval of the governing body for non-Sephardim to worship among them. By 1697 London’s Ashkenazim and Sephardim were being interred in separate burial grounds, following a demand by the Sephardic leadership four years earlier that the Ashkenazim establish their own cemetery. In Amsterdam, the two groups built grand, but separate, synagogues during the early 1670s. The Sephardim permitted Ashkenazim to attend services in their synagogue but segregated them to the sides. In 1772, when a large throng filled the structure to observe a competition to select a new hazan, the Ashkenazim in attendance broke through wooden barriers meant to restrict them to the sides, trampling six attendants in the process, in order to gain entrance to the central part of the synagogue. The occurrence undoubtedly confirmed Sephardic views of Ashkenazic barbarism.

1995, Eli Faber, Hanry L Feingold, A Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654–1820, JHU Press, page 61

The Ashkenazim, many of whom trace their origins back to the early days of Labor Zionism in the late 1800s, have long held most of the economic and political power in Israel.

2005: Mehran Kamrava, The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War, page 219 (University of California Press; hardcover: ; paperback: