What tribe of Israel are Ashkenazic Jews from?

Answer 1

Ashkenazic Jews are European Jews, who are said to be descended from Ashkenaz, great grandson of Noah. ( Ashkenazi was the son of Gomer, who was the son of Japeth, who was the son of Noah).

The Bible does not say when Ashkenaz died, but Barry Setterfield has dated the death of Ashkenaz's cousin Shelah (another great-grandson of Noah) at 1769BC (when he was 403 years old) and assuming the great-grandsons lived to approximately the same ages, Ashkenaz would probably have lived to be about 400 years old also. He has dated the birth of Shelah's eighth-generation descendant, Jacob (later re-named Israel), at 1787BC and the date of his marriage at 1710BC, by which time Ashkenaz would have probably died.

Note:

Ashkenaz and Shelah were from different branches of the family (Ashkenaz's grandfather was Gomer, but Shelah's was Shem) so Ashkenaz was unrelated to the tribes of Israel. Besides, the twelve sons of Israel after whom the tribes are named hadn't even been born yet.

Answer 2

Note (before answering the Question): A quick glance at Genesis ch.10 and 11 will show that Jews are not descended from the person named Ashkenaz. Rather, his name was used by Jews to refer to a geographical area in which many of them sojourned.

Answer:

The great majority of Jews today, some 80% or so, are descended from the Israelite tribe of Judah (plus converts and descendants of converts). This goes for Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardi Jews.

The remaining 20% include Levites (from the tribe of Levi), Cohanim (also a part of the Levites), the entire Tribe of Benjamin, and a small percentage from every one of the remaining tribes. (When the Ten Tribes were carried off into Assyria and didn't return, some of them had already mixed into the tribe of Judah before that, through marriage and through large-scale migration [e.g. 2 Chronicles 15:9]. Also, the Talmud relates [Megillah 14b] that, one century after the Ten Tribes were exiled [and their location was still known], Jeremiah journeyed to where they were and brought some of them back to Judea. Thus, today's Jewry includes a small percentage of every one of the Lost Tribes. [See for example the Talmud, Pesachim 4a.]).See also:

Are Hebrews Israelites and Jews the same people?

Debunking the "From the Ashkenaz Khazars" claim

Answer 3

Ashkenazic Jews are European Jews, who spoke Yiddish, a derivative of German and Hebrew. They have made no claim to be descended from any one tribe.

Answer 4

When the Assyrians scattered the population of the northern kingdom -- the famous lost tribes of Israel, significant numbers must have fled south into Judah, where, in the years before the Babylonian exile, they began to assimilate into the population. As a result, there's no reason to believe that the Jews exiled to Babylon were purely of the tribe of Judah, they and their descendants were almost certainly a blend. Modern Jews cannot claim to represent some one tribe of ancient Israel. This applies equally to the Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Mizrachi and Yemenite Jews of today. They're just Jews.

Answer 5

The answer already posted omits one detail: Cohens (priests) and Levites in the Ashkenazic community today are mostly, according to genetic studies of their Y chromosomes, direct descendants along the male line from a common ancestor from about the time of Moses. As a result, it's highly likely that those who identify as Cohens and Levites among today's Ashkenazic Jews really are legitimate descendants of the tribe of Levi.