Ashkenazi Jews descended from medieval Jewish communities of the Rhineland. Many Ashkenazi Jews migrated east towards Germany, Russia, Poland, and Hungary. Now days, many Ashkenazi Jews speak Yiddish or other Slavic languages such as Knaanic and their culture is similar to those that surround their area. Back in time, during the 11th century, Ashkenazi Jews only consisted of about 3 % of the Jewish population in the world but now days they consist of about 80 % of the world's Jewish population. Many Jews in the USA are Eastern Ashkenazi. The religious differences between the two are a bit different. If a Sephardic Jew marries an Ashkenazi Jew, then they bring their children up to be Ashkenazi as this is their ritual and a gentile who decides to convert to Judaism and takes on Ashkenazi religious practices becomes an Ashkenazi Jew. Even though the Ashkenazi population is higher then the Sephardic Jew population, they are slowly decreasing, especially in Europe, where there are hardly any Ashkenazi Jews.

Cultural differences in the Ashkenazi community can be identified by Yiddishkeit, which is a word that means ''Jewishness'' in the Yiddish language. Even though there are many different kinds of ''Jewishness'', this is the Ashkenazi kind. Yiddishkeit isn't really used by the Jews that much anymore but it is the term used by Ashkenazi Jews to assume their role of being in a fully Jewish world and many of these types of Jews have never met a Sephardic type Jew. Jew's that are more exposed to Judaism are more likely to be the more popular type.

A Sephardic Jew is one that originated in the Iberian Peninsula, this includes Spain and Portugal. Even though Ashkenazi isn't as popular as it once was, many non Ashkenazi's are Sephardic, since they need to choose a group; this is for religious purposes and are identified in modern Israel. While there are many other types of Jews which include ones that originate from places like Africa and Asia, you will typically see many Sephardic Jews coming from Europe. Sephardim under Islam originally started when Tariq ibn Ziyad won in 711, once this happened, the lives of Sephardic Jews changed. While this history is a bit tedious to understand, you can see why they don't exist much anymore.

The differences are unique and any Jew you find that belongs to one of these groups can tell you a great deal more. If you are interested in this history, you can look in large Jewish groups to see if you can find an Ashkenazi or Sephardic Jew, but you will probably find more Ashkenazi's in the states. Many descendants have passed on, but hopefully the new aged Jews will continue to grow their population.