system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is the difference between Ashkenazi Jewish and other Jewish people?
gpt
There are two branches of Jewish origin following the diaspora from Israel - Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. Ashkenazi Jews are the ones who ended up in Northern and Eastern Europe... places like Germany, Poland, and Russia, and comprise about 80% of Jews today. Sephardic Jews are the ones who remained in the Mediterranean, such as Spain/Portugal, North Africa, and across the Middle East (there were even Jewish communities in Yemen and Iraq until a few decades ago). There are some differences is practice that developed over the centuries, but those have greatly diminished over the past century as Jews of both branches have ended up intermingling in the U.S. and Israel.