ABSTRACT
In the Middle Ages, Jews used to refer to different parts of Europe with biblical Hebrew terms such as Ashkenaz, Sephard, Tsarfat, Javan, or Canaan. The ethnonym Tsarfat referred to France, Javan to Ancient Greece, and Canaan to the Slavic-speaking territories. Over time most of these names fell out of use, with the exception of the two toponyms of Ashkenaz and Sephard. Both strongly influenced how Jews perceived their European homelands. Ashkenaz was a placename employed for denoting the Germanic-speaking areas inhabited by Jews, for example, the Rhineland (Rinus) or the Land of King Lothair, or Lotharingia (Lotir). As Jews migrated into the Polish– Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland-Lithuania), the meaning of the term Ashkenaz was broadened to include Central and Eastern Europe. The Jews of early Ashkenaz brought their Judeo-Germanic vernacular to the Slavophone territories, together with their customs and religious practices. Sephard initially meant Iberia (Spain and Portugal), before it came to encompass the Balkan Peninsula as well. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, Sephard denotes all descendants of the Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) Jews who subsequently settled in the Ottoman Empire’s Balkans and Anatolia.
