ANTHROPOLOGY OF EASTERN EUROPEAN JEWS 157 



thousands of years, and no other race displays such a constancy 

 of form, none resisted to such an extent the effects of time, as 

 the Jews. Even when he adapts the language, dress, habits 

 and customs of the peoples among whom he lives, he still 

 remains everywhere the same. All he adapts is but a cloak, 

 under which the eternal Hebrew survives ; he is the same in 

 his facial features, in the structure of his body, his temperament, 

 his character."^ Joseph Jacobs, who studied the question both 

 from the anthropological and the historical standpoint is " in- 

 clined to support the long standing belief in the substantial 

 purity of the Jewish race, and to hold that the vast majority of 

 contemporary Jews are the lineal descendants of the diaspora 

 of the Roman empire."^ 



This view was materially changed during the last thirty years 

 after anthropological investigations of several thousand Jews by 

 modern methods have been published. It is the prevailing 

 opinion at the present that the Jews have not maintained their 

 racial purity to the extent indicated by the authors just quoted- 

 All, even those who speak of the subject from a sentimental 

 standpoint, agree that there are two types of Jews, who are said 

 to present physically distinct characteristics. They are the 

 AsJikcnazhn, or German, Russian and Polish Jews, and the 

 Scphardim, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews."^ Vogt, in his 



J Richard Andree, '*Zur Volkskunde der Juden," Leipsig, 1881, pp. 24-25. 



2 Joseph Jacobs, "On the Racial Characteristics of Modern Jews," Journal 

 Anthropol. hi^tittite, XV, 1885, p. 53. 



3 The European Jews are divided into two main groups, Ashkenazjin and ^'i'- 

 pha7'diin. The former constitute about ninety percent of the modern Jews, while 

 the latter are only about ten percent. Ashkenazim has its origin in Ashkenaz, the 

 son of Gomer, grandson of Japhet, and great-grandson of Noah (Gen. X, 3 ; I 

 Chron. I, 6. ). The Talmud and also medieval rabbinical literature identify Ash- 

 kenaz with Germany and Teutons, while according to Saadia, the Slavs are meant 

 (Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 11, pp. 1 91-193). At present all the Jews from Ger- 

 many, Poland, Russia, and Austria are called Ashkenazim partly because of the 

 " Yiddish " or German jargon which most of them employ. The name Scphardj 

 has its origin in SepJiai^ad, the Biblical name of an unknown land into which the 

 Jews exiled from Jerusalem were brought (see Ahadios, 20). The mediaeval rabbis 

 believed that Sepharad referred to Spain and Portugal ; hence the name Sephardim 

 for the Spanish Jews. When banished from Spain in 1 492, about 300,000 Jews 

 were dispersed ; some wandered to northern Africa, others to Italy, England, Hol- 

 land, Turkey, Asia Minor, etc. The remnants of these Jews living at the present 



