Griffin O'neal Child Actor Autograph Star Contract Signed The Escape Artist

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US, Item: 176299960719 GRIFFIN O'NEAL CHILD ACTOR AUTOGRAPH STAR CONTRACT SIGNED THE ESCAPE ARTIST. GRIFFIN O'NEAL MULTIPAGE CONTRACT SIGNED AS A CHILD STAR WHEN HE WAS 15 YEARS OLD. THE CONTRACT IS FOR HIS ROLE AS DANNY MASTERS IN THE MOVIE THE ESCAPE ARTIST ACTOR'S EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT (Principal Agreement) THIS AGREEMENT is made and entered into as of May 30, 1980, by and between ZOETROPE PRODUCTIONS (hereinafter referred to as the "Producer") and GRIFFIN O'NEAL (hereinafter referred to as the "Artist"). The parties hereto agree as follows: 1. EMPLOYMENT. Producer hereby employs Artist and Artist hereby accepts such employment, to render services as an actor to portray the role of "DANNY MASTERS" in the feature length theatrical motion picture presently entitled "THE ESCAPE ARTIST" (hereinafter referred to as the "Photoplay"). 2. TERM OF SERVICES: (a) Artist's services hereunder shall commence on a date (hereinafter the "Start Date") to be designated by Producer which Start Date shall be on or after July 16, 1980 and shall continue thereafter for such time as Producer may require Artist's services in connection with the production of the Pho- toplay. Producer agrees to designate the exact Start Date by giving either written or oral notice thereof to Artist on or before the date seven (7) days therefrom. (b) It is acknowledged and agreed that Artist's exclusive services hereunder shall commence as of the Start Date and shall continue for a period of twelve (12) consecutive weeks thereafter (hereinafter referred to as the "Minimum Period of Employment") or until completion of principal photography of the Photoplay, whichever is later; at all other times, Art- ist's services hereunder shall be rendered on a non-exclusive basis subject to Artist's other professional commitments. (c) Artist agrees subject to his professional availability to render customary pre-production and post-pro- duction services in connection with the Photoplay as may be required by Producer. Artist further expressly agrees to make himself available to attend approximately two weeks of rehear- sals and wardrobe fittings prior to the Start Date, which re- hearsals are tentatively scheduled to begin June 16, 1980 and to continue for a period of two weeks, and to make himself available, subject to his professional commitments for looping, postsynchronization or other post-production services including process shots as they may be requested by Producer. 3. COMPENSATION. Provided that Artist shall fully and faithfully perform all of the services, duties and obliga- tions required to be performed by Artist hereunder, Producer agrees to pay to Artist as compensation for all of the rights granted hereunder and for all of Artist's services hereunder, the following: (a) Minimum Compensation: The sum of Twenty- Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000.00) payable in equal weekly installments during the Minimum Period of Employment commencing with the Start Date. It is acknowledged and agreed that the foregoing compensation shall include up to two (2) weeks of rehearsals, special training which may be required in connec- tion with Artist's services hereunder (as to which Artist agrees to cooperate with Producer in obtaining any necessary approvals from the Screen Actors Guild), and three (3) days of looping and synchronization services which Artist agrees to render as provided in Paragraph 2(c) hereof and no additional compensation shall be due to Artist with respect to the rendition of such services. (b) Additional Compensation: Pre-Production and Post-Production: If Artist's services are required by Pro- ducer subsequent to the expiration of the Minimum Period of Employment hereunder (excluding any period(s) of suspension) in connection with, but not limited to, additional photography, retakes, or any other post-production services, Producer shall pay additional compensation for each additional day subsequent to the Minimum Period of Employment for which Producer requires Artist to remain available to render such additional services hereunder. Such additional compensation, if any, shall be at the rate of Two Thousand Eighty-Five Dollars ($2,085.00) for which Artist is required to render additional services in con- nection with the Photoplay; such weekly rate shall be appor- tioned ratably for any fractional portion of a week. For the purpose of computation and accrual of compensation in case of fractional weeks, the weekly rate of compensation shall be pro- rated on the basis of a five (5) day week for services rendered in a studio or in the vicinity of Los Angeles, California and elsewhere. Notwithstanding anything contained to the contrary in the foregoing, it is understood that no additional compensation shall be due in connection with the services rendered under this paragraph 3(b) if such services do not require compensa- tion under the Basic Agreement (as defined in the Standard Terms of Engagement ("Standard Terms" attached herete). 4. LIVING EXPENSES AND TRANSPORTATION. (a) Transportation. In the event Producer requires Artist to travel in connection with the Photoplay, - 2Producer shall furnish or shall reimburse (at Producer's elec- tion) Artist for first-class, if available, transportation, (by air if practical and used), between Los Angeles and such loca- tion. Producer further agrees to furnish or reimburse Artist for the reasonable cost of transportation for an individual guardian to be designated by Artist who shall receive trans- portations equivalent in class and frequency to those accorded Artist between Los Angeles and such location. (b) Expenses. Producer shall provide or reim- burse Artist for Artist's and the guardian's reasonable first class living expenses while on location. (c) Promotional Services. If requested by Pro- ducer, Artist shall make a reasonable number of promotional appearances in connection with the exploitation and advertising of the Photoplay subject to Artist's availability by reason of other professional commitments. If Producer requires Artist to travel in order to render such promotional services, Producer shall then provide Artist and Artist's guardian with first-class transportation if available, from Artist's residence to such place as may be designated by Producer, as well as reasonable first-class living expenses for Artist and Artist's guardian while Artist is away from Los Angeles in connection therewith. (d) Dressing Room. Producer shall furnish Art- ist with a dressing room which, if reasonably available and necessitated by weather conditions, shall be air conditioned and shall be equivalent to that accorded other stars of the Photoplay. (e) Invoices. It is acknowledged and understood that Artist shall make available and furnish Producer with such invoices, voucher and proof of payments and use as Producer may request to substantiate any of the expenses incurred by Artist pursuant to this Paragraph 4. 5. CREDIT. Provided that Artist performs each of Artist's obligations hereunder and that Artist appears recogniz- ably in the Photoplay as released, Artist shall be accorded the following credit in the same size and style of type as that accorded those performers receiving starring billing: not less than third position of the starring performers or, at Producer's election, a credit preceded by either "introducing", "and introducing" or "& introducing" "Griffin O'Neal", on screen on a separate card, and in paid advertising whenever and wherever any of the other performers receiving starring billing receive credit other than award, congratulatory and special advertising. - 36. NOTICES. The parties' addresses are as follows: Artist: International Creative Management 8899 Beverly Boulevard Los Angeles, California 90048 Attention: Sue Mengers Copy to: Ziffren, Brittenham & Gullen 2049 Century Park East, #2350 Los Angeles, California 90067 Attention: Paul Brindze, Esq. Producer: Zoetrope Productions 916 Kearny Street San Francisco, California 94133 Copy to: Armstrong, Hendler & Hirsch 1888 Century Park East, Suite 1888 Los Angeles, California 90067 Attention: George T. Hayum, Esq. All payments due and payable to Employer from Producer herein shall be made to Employer in care of Artist's agent at the address hereinabove set forth and receipt by such agent shall be a complete discharge of such indebtedness. 7. WORK PERMIT. In addition to the warranties set forth in the Standard Terms and subject to subparagraph (b) of Paragraph 18, Artist warrants that prior to the start of rehearsals Artist shall have obtained and/or Producer shall attempt and shall have been able to obtain by all necessary work permits from the applicable authorities having legal jur- isdiction over the rendition of Artist's services by reason of his minority. 8. REFERENCE. The terms and conditions under which Employer is engaged to furnish the services of Artist for Pro- ducer, are those set forth in this Principal Agreement and in the Standard Terms attached hereto and by this reference made a part hereof. Wherever the words "this Agreement", "herein", "hereunder", "hereby", or similar words are used, those terms shall refer to this Principal Agreement, and the Standard Terms attached hereto. Any word or phrase used in this Principal Agreement which is defined in said Standard Terms, shall be deemed to be used and defined in accordance with the definition set forth in the Standard Terms. In the event of any inconsis- tency between the terms of this Principal Agreement and said Standard Terms, the terms of this Principal Agreement shall control. - 4-9. MERCHANDISING. Por the compensation payable hercunder, and without limiting Article 1l(e) of the Standard Terms, Producer shall have the right to all the results and proceeds of Artist's services hereunder and to use them in all media in connection with the Photoplay including without limitation, the right to use Artist's name and likeness for publicity purposes and in merchandising elements of the Photo- play. Producer shall have the exclusive worldwide right to use and simulate and to license others to use and simulate Artist's name, likeness and voice for merchandising and commercial tie-ups all in connection with the Photoplay but the right granted in Artist's likeness shall be limited to the use of Artist's like- ness as the character portrayed by Artist in the Photoplay, If Producer engages in such merchandising, Artist shall receive a participation of five percent (5%) of the "Merchandising Net Proceeds" (as defined below) from such use; prorated as to use on a specific item on the basis of that portion of such five percent (5%) that the use of Artist's name and/or likeness bears to the aggregate number of times the name and/or likeness of the other stars of the Photoplay are used in connection with such merchandising, provided that such percentage may not thereby be reduced to less than two and one-half percent (2 1/2%). As used herein, "Merchandising Net Proceeds" means all monies re- ceived by Producer from the licensing of such rights less fifty percent (50%) for a distribution fee and all direct expenses incurred, including agents' fees in connection with such merchandising. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have executed this Agreement the date and year first above written. zoetrope productions BY Its: Poducer" GRIFFIN O'NEAL en "Artist" Griffin Patrick O'Neal (born October 28, 1964) is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as The Escape Artist, April Fool's Day, The Wraith, Assault of the Killer Bimbos, and Ghoulies III. Early life and career O'Neal was born in Los Angeles to actor Ryan O'Neal and his first wife, actress Joanna Moore (born Dorothy Joanne Cook). He has an older sister, Tatum O'Neal, and two younger half brothers, Patrick O'Neal and Redmond O'Neal. His grandfather was novelist and screenwriter Charles "Blackie" O'Neal. His paternal ancestry is Irish, English, and Ashkenazi Jewish.


Griffin Patrick O'Neal (born October 28, 1964) is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as The Escape Artist, April Fool's Day, The Wraith, Assault of the Killer Bimbos, and Ghoulies III. Early life and career O'Neal was born in Los Angeles to actor Ryan O'Neal and his first wife, actress Joanna Moore (born Dorothy Joanne Cook).[1] He has an older sister, Tatum O'Neal, and two younger half brothers, Patrick O'Neal and Redmond O'Neal. His grandfather was novelist and screenwriter Charles "Blackie" O'Neal.[2] His paternal ancestry is Irish, English, and Ashkenazi Jewish.[3] Early in his childhood, O'Neal and his sister lived with their mother in squalid conditions. Their mother struggled with drug and alcohol addiction while they were in her care.[4] She eventually lost custody of them.[5] Griffin O'Neal appeared in 11 movies between 1976 and 1992. Several of these were TV movies or films released directly to video.[6] Film critic Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote in 1982 that Griffin O'Neal "shares with his sister a natural screen presence."[7] Likewise, film critic Leonard Maltin wrote that Griffin O'Neal has a "pleasing screen presence".[8] O'Neal was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's 1987 film Gardens of Stone, but he asked to be replaced after he caused a boating accident that killed Coppola's son Gian-Carlo.[9] Personal life Griffin left Los Angeles in 2007 and moved to a small town near the Mexico border.[5] Marriages O'Neal married his first wife Rima Uranga in 1989; they divorced in 1991.[10] They have a daughter together. He has been married to Joanna Berry since 2008. Substance abuse and relationship with Ryan O'Neal O'Neal is estranged from his father Ryan O'Neal. They have had a volatile relationship since his childhood. O'Neal's struggle with addiction began when he was 9 years old.[5] He told People magazine, "My life has been a reign of drug and alcohol degradation. I had to self-medicate my entire life because there was pain everywhere. There were drugs everywhere in my family all day, every day."[5] He claims that his family's problems stemmed from his father, who gave him cocaine at the age of 11.[11] "He was a very abusive, narcissistic psychopath. He gets so mad he can't control anything he's doing," O'Neal said.[11] In 1983, O'Neal reported to authorities that his father punched out two of his front teeth, but he decided not to press charges.[12] In 2007, Ryan O'Neal was arrested for assault after shooting at Griffin during a dispute.[13] Prosecutors decided not to file charges.[14] "The last time I saw my dad, he shot at me because I was trying to help his son [Redmond] get sober, so I haven't talked to him in nine years," he told People in 2015.[5] O'Neal was banned by his father from attending the funeral services for Farrah Fawcett, the mother of his half-brother Redmond O'Neal, in 2009.[11] O'Neal was reportedly three years sober in 2015.[5] Legal problems In 1986, Griffin O'Neal had a boating accident in Annapolis, Maryland that took the life of film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola.[15] O'Neal, who was piloting the boat, tried to pass between two other boats, unaware that they were connected by a towline. O'Neal barely had time to duck, but Coppola was struck by the towline and killed.[16] O'Neal was convicted of negligently operating a boat, and later received an 18-day jail sentence for not completing community service.[17][18] In 1987, Francis Ford Coppola sued O'Neal and seven others for negligence.[19] O'Neal was arrested multiple times for driving under the influence.[5] He pleaded no contest to a drunk driving charge in 1989.[13] He also pleaded no contest in 1992 to charges that he shot at his estranged girlfriend's unoccupied car.[13] In August 2011, O'Neal collided with another car while driving. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison for driving under the influence of drugs in connection with that incident.[20] In January 2012, O'Neal was arrested for domestic battery after he pushed his wife out of the way in an attempt to drink and drive.[21][22] Filmography Year Title Role Notes 1976 Nickelodeon Bicycle Boy 1982 The Escape Artist Danny Masters 1983 Hadley's Rebellion Hadley Hickman 1986 The Children of Times Square Rick TV movie 1986 April Fool's Day Skip 1986 The Wraith Oggie Fisher 1988 Assault of the Killer Bimbos Troy 1989 Night Children Blade 1989 Jesse Hawkes Cpl. Stevens Episode: "The Centurians" 1990 Return to Justice Bo Johnson 1991 Ghoulies Go to College Blane Alternate title: Ghoulies III 1992 Soulmates Brian The Escape Artist is a 1982 film starring Griffin O'Neal and Raúl Juliá. It was based on a book by David Wagoner, and was the directorial debut of Caleb Deschanel. It was the final film of Joan Hackett, Desi Arnaz, and Gabriel Dell, and the film debut of Harry Anderson. It was also the final film performance of Jackie Coogan, though one film he had shot earlier (The Prey, which was shot in 1979) was not released until 1983. Plot Young and self-confident Danny Masters is the teen-aged son of the late Harry Masters, the "greatest escape artist except for Houdini". Danny himself is an accomplished magician and escape artist. He leaves home to join Uncle Burke and Aunt Sibyl in their magic/mentalist act; Sibyl welcomes him, but Burke is unenthusiastic. Danny soon finds himself embroiled with Stu Quiñones, corrupt son of Mayor Leon Quiñones. The quest for a missing wallet (pick-pocketed by Danny) leads to the comeuppance of the crooked mayor, and separately of his vindictive and out-of-control son. Along the way, Danny comes to terms with the death of his father, the circumstances of which he did not previously know. Cast Raúl Juliá as Stu Quiñones Griffin O'Neal as Danny Masters Desi Arnaz as Mayor Leon Quiñones Teri Garr as Arlene Joan Hackett as Aunt Sibyl Gabriel Dell as Uncle Burke John P. Ryan as Vernon Elizabeth Daily as Sandra M. Emmet Walsh as Fritz Jackie Coogan as Magic Shop Owner Hal Williams as Cop At Mayor's Office Helen Page Camp as Neighbor David Clennon as Newspaper Editor Huntz Hall as Turnkey Harry Anderson as Harry Masters Carlin Glynn as Treasurer's Secretary Margaret Ladd as Reporter Garry Marshall as Drummer Doug McGrath as The Photographer Richard Bradford as Sam City Treasurer (uncredited) Production notes This film was shot in 1980, but remained unreleased for two years as it underwent extensive re-editing. The cast includes two members of the 1930s troupe the Dead End Kids: Gabriel Dell and Huntz Hall. Reception The film received mixed to poor reviews, with critics generally praising the performances, but finding the script elements unfocused. Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted that the finished film "represents a lot more talent than is ever demonstrated on the screen."[2] The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated terms include teenage actor or teen actor, an actor who reached popularity as a teenager. Famous earlier examples include Elizabeth Taylor, who started as a child star in the early 1940s in productions like National Velvet before becoming a popular film star as an adult in movies. Many child actors find themselves struggling to adapt as they become adults, mainly due to typecasting. Macaulay Culkin and Lindsay Lohan are two particular famous child actors who eventually experienced much difficulty with the fame they acquired at a young age. Some child actors do go on to have successful acting careers as adults; notable actors who first gained fame as children include Mickey Rooney, Kurt Russell, Jodie Foster, Christian Bale, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johansson. Other child actors have gone on to successful careers in other fields, including director Ron Howard, politicians Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński, and singer Jenny Lewis. Regulation In the United States, the activities of child actors are regulated by the governing labor union, if any, and state laws. Some projects film in distant locations specifically to evade regulations intended to protect the child. Longer work hours or risky stunts prohibited by California, for example, might be permitted to a project filming in British Columbia. US federal law "specifically exempted minors working in the entertainment business from all provisions of the child labor Laws."[citation needed] Any regulation of child actors is governed by disparate state laws. California Due to the large presence of the entertainment industry in Hollywood, the state of California has some of the most explicit laws protecting child actors. Being a minor, a child actor must secure an entertainment work permit before accepting any paid work. Compulsory education laws mandate that the education of the child actor not be disrupted while the child is working, whether the child actor is enrolled in public school, private school or even home school. The child does their schoolwork under the supervision of a studio teacher while on the set. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a child actor is defined as someone under school leaving age.[1] Before a child can work, they require a performance license from their Local Education Authority as well as a licensed chaperone; a parent can only chaperone their own child, and a chaperone's duties include acting in loco parentis and record arrival and departure time from the work place, the time a child is working, their breaks and the amount of tutoring.[1][2] A child requires three hours minimum of tutoring daily and a lesson must be a minimum of 30 minutes to count towards the total and with regards to 16 and 17-year-old in further education, considerations are made in regards to their studies.[3] There are regulations and guidance to safeguard all actors under the age of 18; OFCOM guidance states a child's health and safety, well being and welfare is paramount in television production and factors such as their age, maturity and life experiences can affect their performance.[4] OFCOM also advises that broadcasters undertake risk assessments, consider seeking expert advice and follow best practice.[4] Issues Ownership of earnings In the United States before the 1930s, many child actors never got to see the money they earned because they were not in charge of this money. Jackie Coogan earned millions of dollars from working as a child actor only to see most of it squandered by his parents. In 1939, California weighed in on this controversy and enacted the Coogan Bill, which requires a portion of the earnings of a child to be preserved in a special savings account called a blocked trust.[5] A trust that is not actively monitored can also be problematic, however, as in the case of Gary Coleman, who after working from 1974, later sued his adoptive parents and former business advisor for $3.8 million over misappropriation of his trust fund.[6][7] Competitive pressure Some people[who?] also criticize the parents of child actors for allowing their children to work, believing that more "normal" activities should be the staple during the childhood years. Others[who?] observe that competition is present in all areas of a child's life—from sports to student newspaper to orchestra and band—and believe that the work ethic instilled or the talent developed accrues to the child's benefit.[citation needed] The child actor may experience unique and negative pressures when working under tight production schedules. Large projects which depend for their success on the ability of the child to deliver an effective performance add to the pressure.[citation needed] Ethel Merman, who several times worked in long-running stage productions with child actors, disliked what she eventually saw as their over-professionalization—"acting more like midgets than children"—and disapproved of parents pushing adulthood on them.[8] After the childhood success This section possibly contains synthesis of material which does not verifiably mention or relate to the main topic. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Jodie Foster in 1974 There are many instances of troubled adult lives due to the stressful environment to which child actors are subjected. It is common to see a child actor grow up in front of the camera, whether in films, TV shows or both. However, it is not uncommon to see child actors continue their careers throughout as actors or in a different professional field. Jodie Foster started acting at age 3, becoming the quintessential child actor during the 1970's with roles in films such as Tom Sawyer (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Bugsy Malone (1976), The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), and Freaky Friday (1976). A child prodigy, Foster received her first Academy Award nomination at age 13 and later took a sabbatical from films to attend Yale University. She made a successful transition to adult roles, winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress before the age of 30, and starring in several successful and acclaimed films such as The Accused (1988), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Nell (1994), Maverick (1994), Contact (1997), and The Brave One (2007), thus establishing herself as one of the most accomplished and sought-after actresses of her generation. She has also ventured into directing and her directing credits include films such as Little Man Tate (1991), Money Monster (2016) and television shows such as House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and Black Mirror. Now adults, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, the three leads of the acclaimed Harry Potter film series (2001–11), starred in every installment in the series, and have since continued to act in film, television, and theater in their early 30's. Dakota Fanning rose to prominence after her breakthrough performance at age 7 in the film I Am Sam (2001). Her performance earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination at age 8 in 2002, making her the youngest nominee in SAG history. She later appeared in major Hollywood productions, in such acclaimed blockbuster films as Man on Fire (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Charlotte's Web (2006), Hounddog (2007), The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Coraline (2009), The Twilight Saga film series (2009–12), The Runaways (2010), and The Motel Life (2012). Fanning's younger sister, Elle Fanning also rose to prominence as a child actress, having appeared in many films since before she turned 3. Miranda Cosgrove, known mainly for her role as Megan on the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh as a child, gained more attention for her role as a teenager in the show iCarly. Since the end of the show she has been featured in other roles, including as the voice of Margo in the Despicable Me franchise. Once she was of age, she decided to pursue a college degree in film at the University of Southern California.[9] Late actress Shirley Temple became a public figure and diplomat, beginning in the 1960's. Some of her duties included representing the United Nations, and becoming a U.S. ambassador in countries such as Ghana and Czechoslovakia.[10] Mary-Kate Olsen, who shared the role of Michelle Tanner with her twin sister Ashley on the ABC sitcom Full House, was treated for an eating disorder, deemed anorexia, but Ashley remained less troubled. In an article with the magazine Marie Claire, Mary-Kate expressed the bittersweet nature of the twins' childhood. "I look at old photos of me, and I don't feel connected to them at all," she said. "I would never wish my upbringing on anyone... but I wouldn't take it back for the world." The twins eventually retired from acting to pursue a full-time career in the fashion industry, which, to this day, is continuously successful with an estimated net worth of approximately $100,000,000. Mandy Moore is one of the child stars to have success as an adult with the start of her growing career in 1993. Drew Barrymore, a former child star, started acting at age 3. During her childhood she battled with drugs, but recovered and currently continues to act. Natalie Portman took a small break in acting to get a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Harvard University before continuing her career as an actress. Rider Strong, known as "Shawn Hunter" in Boy Meets World, was educated at Columbia University and now runs a successful blog and has published a graphic novel.[11] Neil Patrick Harris started his career as a child actor in Doogie Howser, M.D. He continues to act in television, films and theater. Harris is now a cult figure icon. Jonathan Lipnicki, known mostly for the Stuart Little films, now successfully competes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[11] Sara Gilbert is known for her role on Roseanne and later created and served as a co-host for CBS's The Talk. Also from Roseanne, Michael Fishman continued to work in film, but behind the scenes and has since been nominated for an Emmy for the work he did in Sports Science. Both Gilbert and Fishman returned for the later series based on Roseanne, The Conners, with Gilbert also serving as an executive producer and guiding the series through its transition after Roseanne Barr was fired after the tenth season of the revived Roseanne.[11] Kirsten Dunst and Lacey Chabert both made the transition from a child actress to an adult actress with a rough patch including depression. After a stay in a rehabilitation center, Dunst was able to recover and continue her career. She proves that the pressures of growing up under the spotlight may not come without repercussions.[12] Roddy McDowall, who had a long and outstanding career including as the regular star of the Planet of the Apes series; Micky Dolenz, who started his career as a child star in the 1950s, grew up to be a musician of the successful 1960s pop group The Monkees, which had its own successful television show; Ron Howard, who, in addition to being the star of both of the long running The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days television series, became an Academy Award-winning director in adulthood; Elijah Wood, who continued his career successfully into adulthood, starring as Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film series and starring as Ryan Newman in the television series Wilfred. Other careers This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Many actors and child actors careers are often quite short. Many actors, out of personal choice, that start their careers as child actors decide not to pursue the same careers as adults. Shirley Temple, for example became a public figure and diplomat. Peter Ostrum, appearing in his only role, the lead character of Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory became a large-scale veterinarian surgeon. While Jenny Lewis, formerly of film Troop Beverly Hills in 1989, is a well-known singer-songwriter indie rock musician. In Poland, former child actors and identical twin brothers Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński became successful politicians, at one time Lech being president and Jarosław the prime minister. American minor actor who made his film debut at age 15 in "The Escape Artist," 1982. He went on to make a few low-budget films in the late 1980s, but after 1991, O’Neal left the business. From a noted theatrical family, Griffin is the son of actors Ryan O’Neal and Joanna Moore; his sister Tatum became an actress as well, struggling through her own drug problems. Despite Griffin’s early foray into the family business, he is more known for growing up as a wild kid, receiving numerous speeding tickets, getting involved in petty theft and frequently having fistfights, including one with his famous father that resulted in Griffin’s loss of three teeth. He was a one-year-old baby when his parents separated and the media reported that his mom would take the kids to a bar and then leave when she headed to a party. Tatum, just 11 months older, would call their grandma who would pick up the kids, bath and feed them. When Griffin was six, his dad took Tatum to live with him and Leigh Taylor-Young, his second wife. The boy grew up pretty well untended and by the time he was 11, was essentially on his own, running with a young crowd from Hollywood's golden ghetto. By the time he was 21, his troubles became more serious when he was involved in a tragic boating accident. On 5/26/1986, while the boys were playing reckless games on the lake, Gian Carlo Coppola, the son of Francis Ford Coppola, was killed in a speed boating accident. Griffin was charged with manslaughter but not convicted. He was cited and given probation for negligence, sentenced to 400 hours of community service and fined. He was arrested on a DUI charge (driving under the influence) on 10/02/1988 and sentenced to community service on 8/18/1989. O’Neal married Rima Belinda Uranga in Las Vegas on 7/04/1989; they have a baby daughter. In 1992, he was again in the headlines when he was arrested for possession of marijuana, assaulting his present girlfriend, and firing a .44 magnum at her car. In November 1992 he agreed to spend a year in a drug-rehab facility. Link to Wikipedia biography Relationships child->parent relationship with O'Neal, Ryan (born 20 April 1941) sibling relationship with O'Neal, Patrick (born 14 September 1967). Notes: Half-sibling, same father sibling relationship with O'Neal, Redmond (born 30 January 1985). Notes: Half-sibling, same father sibling relationship with O'Neal, Tatum (born 5 November 1963) other criminal relationship with Coppola, Gian-Carlo (born 17 September 1963). Notes: O'Neal was piloting the boat in which Coppola was accidentally killed Events Work : Published/ Exhibited/ Released 1982 (Film debut) Crime : Arrest 26 May 1986 (Involvement in death of Gian Carlo Coppola) chart Placidus Equal_H. Relationship : Marriage 1989 (Rima Uranga) Work : Fired/Laid off/Quit 1991 (Left the acting business) Crime : Arrest 1992 (Assault and battery, posession of marijuana) Misc. : Retain professional help November 1992 (Drug rehab treatment) chart Placidus Equal_H. Death of Mother 22 November 1997 in Indian Wells (Riverside County) (Joanna Moore, lung cancer, age 63) chart Placidus Equal_H. Source Notes Sue Jorgenson quotes B.C. #7053-049623 viewed at Norwalk Records office, CA, the son of Dorothy Joanna Moore and Patrick Ryan O'Neal. Categories Diagnoses : Body Part Problems : Treatment/Therapy (Drug rehab center) Diagnoses : Psychological : Abuse Drugs Family : Childhood : Abuse - Neglect (Mom partied, dad not around) Family : Childhood : Family noted (Dad) Family : Childhood : Parents divorced (Age one when parents divorced) Family : Childhood : Sibling circumstances (Sister noted actress) Lifestyle : Social Life : Party animal Passions : Criminal Perpetrator : Assault/ Battery Passions : Criminal Perpetrator : Homicide involvement (Manslaughter) Passions : Criminal Perpetrator : Social crime/ delinquent (Speeding, fist fights) Passions : Criminal Perpetrator : Thief/ Financial crime (Petty theft) Vocation : Entertainment : Actor/ Actress (Minor film work) Vocation : Entertainment : Child performer (From age 15) Los Angeles (US: /lɔːs ˈændʒələs/ (listen) lawss AN-jəl-əs; Spanish: Los Ángeles [los ˈaŋxeles], lit. 'The Angels'), often referred to by its initials L.A.,[13] is the largest city in California, United States of America. It is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the second-most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities with a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020.[7] Los Angeles has a Mediterranean climate, an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and a sprawling metropolitan area. It is perhaps best known as the home of the Hollywood film industry. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2),[6] and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.[14] It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. after New York City and Miami with over 4.6 million visitors as of 2019.[15] The area that became Los Angeles was originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people and later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. The city was founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, on the village of Yaanga.[16] It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and became part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city.[17] The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California. Los Angeles has a diverse economy with a broad range of industries. It has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas.[18][19][20] In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a gross metropolitan product of over $1.0 trillion,[21] making it the city with the third-largest GDP in the world, after New York City and Tokyo. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the 2028 Summer Olympics. More recently, statewide droughts in California have strained both the city's and Los Angeles County's water security.[22][23] Name The local English pronunciation of the name of the city has varied over time. A 1953 article in the journal of the American Name Society asserts that the pronunciation /lɔːs ˈændʒələs/ lawss AN-jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation /loʊs ˈæŋɡələs/ lohss ANG-gəl-əs emerged from a trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations.[24] In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis, who argued for the name's pronunciation with a hard g (/ɡ/),[25][26] reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants.[27] In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais (/loʊs ˈɑːŋheɪleɪs/), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles], by printing the respelling under its masthead for several years.[28] This did not find favor.[29] Since the 1930s, /lɔːs ˈændʒələs/ has been most common.[30] In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used.[28] This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation.[24][28] Common pronunciations in the United Kingdom include /lɒs ˈændʒɪliːz, -lɪz, -lɪs/ loss AN-jil-eez, -⁠iz, -⁠iss.[31] Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described the most common one, /lɒs ˈændʒɪliːz/ (listen), as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -‍es, "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish was not".[32] History Main article: History of Los Angeles For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Los Angeles. Indigenous history Yaanga, a prominent Tongva village, stood in the area before the Spanish founded Los Angeles. The settlement of Indigenous Californians in the modern Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley was dominated by the Tongva (now also known as the Gabrieleño since the era of Spanish colonization). The historic center of Tongva power in the region was the settlement of Yaanga (Tongva: Iyáangẚ), meaning "place of the poison oak", which would one day be the site where the Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles. Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke".[33][34][35][36][16] Spanish rule Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving northward along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.[37] Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769.[38] The Spanish founded Mission San Fernando Rey de España in 1797. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area.[39] On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'.[40] The original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula";[41] other sources have shortened or alternate versions of the longer name.[42] The present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or (New Spain) settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry.[43] The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents.[44] Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.[45] Mexican rule Californio statesman Pío Pico, who served as the last Mexican governor of California, played an influential role in the development of Los Angeles in the late Mexican and early American eras. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo now existed within the new Mexican Republic. During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles, Alta California's regional capital.[46] By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within the Los Angeles region.[47] In 1846, during the wider Mexican-American war, marines from the United States occupied the pueblo. This resulted in the siege of Los Angeles where 150 Mexican militias fought the occupiers which eventually surrendered.[48] Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California, part of the larger Mexican-American War. Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847.[49] The Mexican Cession was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States. Post-Conquest era See also: Victorian Downtown Los Angeles and Los Angeles in the 1920s The Treaty of Cahuenga, signed in 1847 by Californio Andrés Pico and American John C. Frémont, ended the U.S. Conquest of California. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885.[50] Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output.[51] By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000,[52] putting pressure on the city's water supply.[53] The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, ensured the continued growth of the city.[54] Because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles.[55][56][57] In the early 20th century, Hollywood studios, like Paramount Pictures, helped transform Hollywood into the world capital of film and helped solidify LA as a global economic hub. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries. Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within the city. However, between 1908 and 1915, the Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as the 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally.[58] In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A.[59] The money generated by the industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression.[60] By 1930, the population surpassed one million.[61] In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics. Post-WWII During World War II, the California Shipbuilding Corporation on Terminal Island was among the many builders that made the Port of Los Angeles one of the largest shipyards in the country. During World War II Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and the Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers (Douglas Aircraft Company, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, North American Aviation, Northrop Corporation, and Vultee). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen, of the National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible."[62] After the end of World War II Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley.[63] The expansion of the Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled the demise of the city's electrified rail system, once the world's largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area.[64] An example is Beverly Park, which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center.[65] Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries.[66] Opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics at the LA Coliseum In 1969, California became the birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park.[67] In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city's first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army's South Central standoff in 1974 and the Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978.[68] In early 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population, thus becoming the second largest city in the United States. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time. Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries, the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous,[69] and the second Olympics to turn a profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles.[70] Wilshire Grand Center, built in 2017, is the tallest building in California and in the Western United States. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King, culminating in large-scale riots.[71][72] In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths.[73] The century ended with the Rampart scandal, one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history.[74] 21st century In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city.[75] In 2022, Karen Bass became the city's first female mayor, making Los Angeles the largest US city to have ever had a woman as mayor.[76] Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games, making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times.[77][78] Geography See also: Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley Topography Satellite view of Los Angeles The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km2), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km2) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km2) of water.[79] The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of the city is 342 miles (550 km). Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m),[80][81] located at the northeastern end of the San Fernando Valley. The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights, the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills, and the San Pedro district. Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains, which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point is Mount San Antonio, locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain, 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles,[82] with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m). The Los Angeles River, which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel. It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by the Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel.[83] The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey. Vegetation See also: California coastal sage and chaparral Del Rey Lagoon in Playa del Rey Los Angeles is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands, and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub, chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland.[84] Native plants include: the California poppy, matilija poppy, toyon, Ceanothus, Chamise, Coast Live Oak, sycamore, willow and Giant Wildrye. Many of these native species, such as the Los Angeles sunflower, have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Although it is not native to the area, the official tree of Los Angeles is the Coral Tree (Erythrina caffra)[85] and the official flower of Los Angeles is the Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae).[86] Mexican Fan Palms, Canary Island Palms, Queen Palms, Date Palms, and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native to California, though still not native to the City of Los Angeles. Geology Mount Lukens, in the San Gabriel Mountains, is the highest point in LA Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The geologic instability has produced numerous faults, which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt.[87] The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake.[88] The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes.[89] Major earthquakes that have hit the Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach, 1971 San Fernando, 1987 Whittier Narrows, and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast, which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011.[90] Cityscape Main article: List of districts and neighborhoods in Los Angeles The skyline of Downtown Los Angeles The city is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods,[91][92] some of which were incorporated cities that have merged with Los Angeles.[93] These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them.[94] Overview View of the Downtown Los Angeles skyline from Griffith Park The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan, with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of the worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom. LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index.[95] Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown, Warner Center, Century City, Koreatown, Miracle Mile, Hollywood, and Westwood, skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above the rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall. That being said Downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center. Also Los Angeles is increasingly becoming a city of apartments rather than single-family dwellings, especially in the dense inner city and Westside neighborhoods.[citation needed] Selection of neighborhoods in Los Angeles Boyle Heights Boyle Heights   East Hollywood East Hollywood   Historic Core Historic Core   Pacific Palisades Pacific Palisades   Little Tokyo Little Tokyo   Silver Lake Silver Lake   San Pedro San Pedro   Los Feliz Los Feliz   Financial District Financial District   Venice Venice   Playa del Rey Playa del Rey   Westwood Westwood Climate Main article: Climate of Los Angeles Los Angeles (Downtown) Climate chart (explanation) J F M A M J J A S O N D   3.3  6849   3.6  6850   2.2  7052   0.7  7255   0.3  7458   0.1  7761   0  8265  0  8465   0.1  8364   0.6  7960   0.8  7353   2.5  6748 █ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F █ Precipitation totals in inches Source:NOAA[96] Metric conversion Los Angeles has a two-season Mediterranean climate of dry summer and very mild winter (Köppen Csb on the coast and most of downtown, Csa near the metropolitan region to the west), but it receives less annual precipitation than most other Mediterranean climates, so it is near the boundary of a semi-arid climate (BSh), though narrowly missing it.[97] Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. In winter, they average around 68 °F (20 °C) giving it a tropical feel although it is a few degrees too cool to be a true tropical climate on average due to cool night temperatures.[98][99] Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout the year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually.[100] Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September.[100] Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas the difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C).[101] The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August.[102] Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July.[103] The Los Angeles area is also subject to phenomena typical of a microclimate, causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For example, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 70 °F (21 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park, 15 miles (24 km) away.[104] The city, like much of the Southern Californian coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called "June Gloom". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning that yield to sun by early afternoon.[105] Lake Hollywood in the Santa Monica Mountains More recently, statewide droughts in California have further strained the city's water security.[106] Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.67 in (373 mm) of precipitation annually, mainly occurring between November and March,[107][101] generally in the form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Rainfall is usually higher in the hills and coastal slopes of the mountains because of orographic uplift. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while the inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is a year-to-year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm).[101] Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to the lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wildfires have denuded the slopes. Venice Beach on the South Coast of California Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979;[101] freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932.[101][108] While the most recent snowfall occurred in February 2019, the first snowfall since 1962,[109][110] with snow falling in areas adjacent to Los Angeles as recently as January 2021.[111] At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010,[101][112] while the lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C),[101] on January 4, 1949.[101] Within the City of Los Angeles, the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 121 °F (49 °C), on September 6, 2020, at the weather station at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills.[113] During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring much warmer and drier conditions to Los Angeles, and raise wildfire risk. vte Climate data for Los Angeles (USC, Downtown), 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1877–present Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °F (°C) 95 (35) 95 (35) 99 (37) 106 (41) 103 (39) 112 (44) 109 (43) 106 (41) 113 (45) 108 (42) 100 (38) 92 (33) 113 (45) Mean maximum °F (°C) 83.0 (28.3) 82.8 (28.2) 85.8 (29.9) 90.1 (32.3) 88.9 (31.6) 89.1 (31.7) 93.5 (34.2) 95.2 (35.1) 99.4 (37.4) 95.7 (35.4) 88.9 (31.6) 81.0 (27.2) 101.5 (38.6) Average high °F (°C) 68.0 (20.0) 68.0 (20.0) 69.9 (21.1) 72.4 (22.4) 73.7 (23.2) 77.2 (25.1) 82.0 (27.8) 84.0 (28.9) 83.0 (28.3) 78.6 (25.9) 72.9 (22.7) 67.4 (19.7) 74.8 (23.8) Daily mean °F (°C) 58.4 (14.7) 59.0 (15.0) 61.1 (16.2) 63.6 (17.6) 65.9 (18.8) 69.3 (20.7) 73.3 (22.9) 74.7 (23.7) 73.6 (23.1) 69.3 (20.7) 63.0 (17.2) 57.8 (14.3) 65.8 (18.8) Average low °F (°C) 48.9 (9.4) 50.0 (10.0) 52.4 (11.3) 54.8 (12.7) 58.1 (14.5) 61.4 (16.3) 64.7 (18.2) 65.4 (18.6) 64.2 (17.9) 59.9 (15.5) 53.1 (11.7) 48.2 (9.0) 56.8 (13.8) Mean minimum °F (°C) 41.4 (5.2) 42.9 (6.1) 45.4 (7.4) 48.9 (9.4) 53.5 (11.9) 57.4 (14.1) 61.1 (16.2) 61.7 (16.5) 59.1 (15.1) 53.7 (12.1) 45.4 (7.4) 40.5 (4.7) 39.2 (4.0) Record low °F (°C) 28 (−2) 28 (−2) 31 (−1) 36 (2) 40 (4) 46 (8) 49 (9) 49 (9) 44 (7) 40 (4) 34 (1) 30 (−1) 28 (−2) Average rainfall inches (mm) 3.29 (84) 3.64 (92) 2.23 (57) 0.69 (18) 0.32 (8.1) 0.09 (2.3) 0.02 (0.51) 0.00 (0.00) 0.13 (3.3) 0.58 (15) 0.78 (20) 2.48 (63) 14.25 (362) Average rainy days (≥ 0.01 in) 6.1 6.3 5.1 2.8 1.9 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.4 2.2 2.8 5.5 34.1 Mean monthly sunshine hours 225.3 222.5 267.0 303.5 276.2 275.8 364.1 349.5 278.5 255.1 217.3 219.4 3,254.2 Percent possible sunshine 71 72 72 78 64 64 83 84 75 73 70 71 73 Average ultraviolet index 2.9 4.2 6.2 8.1 9.2 10.4 10.8 10.0 8.1 5.4 3.5 2.6 6.7 Source 1: NOAA (sun 1961–1977)[114][96][115][116] Source 2: UV Index Today (1995 to 2022)[117] vte Climate data for Los Angeles (LAX), 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1944–present Environmental issues Further information: Pollution in California § Los Angeles air pollution External audio audio icon "Fighting Smog in Los Angeles", Distillations Podcast, 2018 Science History Institute Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources.[121] The percentage of small particle pollution (the kind that penetrates into the lungs) coming from vehicles in the city can get as high as 55 percent.[citation needed] Viewable smog in Los Angeles in December 2005 The smog season lasts from approximately May to October.[122] While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to the passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act. When the act was passed, California was unable to create a State Implementation Plan that would enable it to meet the new air quality standards, largely because of the level of pollution in Los Angeles generated by older vehicles.[123] More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles. Smog is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit, and other measures. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium.[124] Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked the city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution.[125] In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution.[126] The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010.[127] The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having the nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short-term and year-round pollution amounts.[128] Los Angeles is also home to the nation's largest urban oil field. There are more than 700 active oil wells within 1,500 feet (460 m) of homes, churches, schools and hospitals in the city, a situation about which the EPA has voiced serious concerns.[129] The city has an urban population of bobcats (Lynx rufus).[130] Mange is a common problem in this population.[130] Although Serieys et al. 2014 find selection of immune genetics at several loci they do not demonstrate that this produces a real difference which helps the bobcats to survive future mange outbreaks.[130] Demographics Main article: Demographics of Los Angeles Historical population Census Pop. Note %± 1850 1,610 — 1860 4,385 172.4% 1870 5,728 30.6% 1880 11,183 95.2% 1890 50,395 350.6% 1900 102,479 103.4% 1910 319,198 211.5% 1920 576,673 80.7% 1930 1,238,048 114.7% 1940 1,504,277 21.5% 1950 1,970,358 31.0% 1960 2,479,015 25.8% 1970 2,811,801 13.4% 1980 2,968,528 5.6% 1990 3,485,398 17.4% 2000 3,694,820 6.0% 2010 3,792,621 2.6% 2020 3,898,747 2.8% 2022 (est.) 3,819,538 [131] −2.0% United States Census Bureau[132] 2010–2020, 2021[7] The 2010 U.S. census[133] reported Los Angeles had a population of 3,792,621.[134] The population density was 8,092.3 people per square mile (3,124.5 people/km2). The age distribution was 874,525 people (23.1%) under 18, 434,478 people (11.5%) from 18 to 24, 1,209,367 people (31.9%) from 25 to 44, 877,555 people (23.1%) from 45 to 64, and 396,696 people (10.5%) who were 65 or older.[134] The median age was 34.1 years. For every 100 females, there were 99.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.6 males.[134] There were 1,413,995 housing units—up from 1,298,350 during 2005–2009[134]—at an average density of 2,812.8 households per square mile (1,086.0 households/km2), of which 503,863 (38.2%) were owner-occupied, and 814,305 (61.8%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.1%; the rental vacancy rate was 6.1%. 1,535,444 people (40.5% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 2,172,576 people (57.3%) lived in rental housing units.[134] According to the 2010 United States Census, Los Angeles had a median household income of $49,497, with 22.0% of the population living below the federal poverty line.[134] Race and ethnicity Racial and ethnic composition 1940[135] 1970[135] 1990[135] 2010[136] 2020[136] Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 7.1% 17.1% 39.9% 48.5% 46.9% White (non-Hispanic) 86.3% 61.1% 37.3% 28.7% 28.9% Asian (non-Hispanic) 2.2% 3.6% 9.8% 11.1% 11.7% Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 4.2% 17.9% 14.0% 9.2% 8.3% Other (non-Hispanic) N/A N/A 0.1% 0.3% 0.7% Two or more races (non-Hispanic) N/A N/A N/A 2.0% 3.3% According to the 2010 census, the racial makeup of Los Angeles included: 1,888,158 Whites (49.8%), 365,118 African Americans (9.6%), 28,215 Native Americans (0.7%), 426,959 Asians (11.3%), 5,577 Pacific Islanders (0.1%), 902,959 from other races (23.8%), and 175,635 (4.6%) from two or more races.[134] Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1,838,822 persons (48.5%). Los Angeles is home to people from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different identified languages.[137] Ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Tehrangeles, Little Tokyo, Little Bangladesh, and Thai Town provide examples of the polyglot character of Los Angeles. Percentage of households with incomes above $150k across Los Angeles County census tracts Non-Hispanic Whites were 28.7% of the population in 2010,[134] compared to 86.3% in 1940.[135] The majority of the Non-Hispanic White population is living in areas along the Pacific coast as well as in neighborhoods near and on the Santa Monica Mountains from the Pacific Palisades to Los Feliz. Mexican ancestry make up the largest ethnic group of Hispanics at 31.9% of the city's population, followed by those of Salvadoran (6.0%) and Guatemalan (3.6%) heritage. The Hispanic population has a long established Mexican-American and Central American community and is spread well-nigh throughout the entire city of Los Angeles and its metropolitan area. It is most heavily concentrated in regions around Downtown as East Los Angeles, Northeast Los Angeles and Westlake. Furthermore, a vast majority of residents in neighborhoods in eastern South Los Angeles towards Downey are of Hispanic origin.[citation needed] Map of racial and ethnic distribution in Los Angeles as of the 2010 U.S. Census. Each dot is 25 people: ⬤ White ⬤ Black ⬤ Asian ⬤ Hispanic ⬤ Other The largest Asian ethnic groups are Filipinos (3.2%) and Koreans (2.9%), which have their own established ethnic enclaves—Koreatown in the Wilshire Center and Historic Filipinotown.[138] Chinese people, which make up 1.8% of Los Angeles's population, reside mostly outside of Los Angeles city limits and rather in the San Gabriel Valley of eastern Los Angeles County, but make a sizable presence in the city, notably in Chinatown.[139] Chinatown and Thaitown are also home to many Thais and Cambodians, which make up 0.3% and 0.1% of Los Angeles's population, respectively. The Japanese comprise 0.9% of LA's population and have an established Little Tokyo in the city's downtown, and another significant community of Japanese Americans is in the Sawtelle district of West Los Angeles. Vietnamese make up 0.5% of Los Angeles's population. Indians make up 0.9% of the city's population. The city is also home to Armenians, Assyrians, and Iranians, many of whom live in enclaves like Little Armenia and Tehrangeles.[citation needed] African Americans have been the predominant ethnic group in South Los Angeles, which has emerged as the largest African American community in the western United States since the 1960s. The neighborhoods of South Los Angeles with highest concentration of African Americans include Crenshaw, Baldwin Hills, Leimert Park, Hyde Park, Gramercy Park, Manchester Square and Watts.[140] Apart from South Los Angeles, neighborhoods in the Central region of Los Angeles, as Mid-City and Mid-Wilshire have a moderate concentration of African Americans as well.[citation needed] Los Angeles has the second largest Mexican, Armenian, Salvadoran, Filipino and Guatemalan population by city in the world, the third largest Canadian population in the world, and has the largest Japanese, Iranian/Persian, Cambodian and Romani (Gypsy) population in the country.[141] The Italian community is concentrated in San Pedro.[142] Religion Religious affiliation (2014)[143][144] Christian   65% Catholic   32% Protestant   30% Other Christian   3% Unaffiliated   25% Jewish   3% Muslim   2% Buddhist   2% Hindu   1% Other faiths   1% According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity is the most prevalently practiced religion in Los Angeles (65%).[143][144] The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest archdiocese in the country.[145] Cardinal Roger Mahony, as the archbishop, oversaw construction of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which opened in September 2002 in Downtown Los Angeles.[146] In 2011, the once common, but ultimately lapsed, custom of conducting a procession and Mass in honor of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, in commemoration of the founding of the City of Los Angeles in 1781, was revived by the Queen of Angels Foundation and its founder Mark Albert, with the support of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as well as several civic leaders.[147] The recently revived custom is a continuation of the original processions and Masses that commenced on the first anniversary of the founding of Los Angeles in 1782 and continued for nearly a century thereafter. St. Vincent de Paul Church, a parish of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles With 621,000 Jews in the metropolitan area, the region has the second-largest population of Jews in the United States, after New York City.[148] Many of Los Angeles's Jews now live on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley, though Boyle Heights once had a large Jewish population prior to World War II due to restrictive housing covenants. Major Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods include Hancock Park, Pico-Robertson, and Valley Village, while Jewish Israelis are well represented in the Encino and Tarzana neighborhoods, and Persian Jews in Beverly Hills. Many varieties of Judaism are represented in the greater Los Angeles area, including Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist. The Breed Street Shul in East Los Angeles, built in 1923, was the largest synagogue west of Chicago in its early decades; it is no longer in daily use as a synagogue and is being converted to a museum and community center.[149][150] The Kabbalah Centre also has a presence in the city.[151] The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was founded in Los Angeles by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923 and remains headquartered there to this day. For many years, the church convened at Angelus Temple, which, at its construction, was one of the largest churches in the country.[152] Wilshire Boulevard Temple is one of the largest synagogues in LA. Los Angeles has had a rich and influential Protestant tradition. The first Protestant service in Los Angeles was a Methodist meeting held in a private home in 1850 and the oldest Protestant church still operating, First Congregational Church, was founded in 1867.[153] In the early 1900s the Bible Institute Of Los Angeles published the founding documents of the Christian Fundamentalist movement and the Azusa Street Revival launched Pentecostalism.[153] The Metropolitan Community Church also had its origins in the Los Angeles area.[154] Important churches in the city include First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Bel Air Presbyterian Church, First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, West Angeles Church of God in Christ, Second Baptist Church, Crenshaw Christian Center, McCarty Memorial Christian Church, and First Congregational Church. Second Church of Christ, Scientist The Los Angeles California Temple, the second-largest temple operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Dedicated in 1956, it was the first temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built in California and it was the largest in the world when completed.[155] The Hollywood region of Los Angeles also has several significant headquarters, churches, and the Celebrity Center of Scientology.[156][157] Because of Los Angeles's large multi-ethnic population, a wide variety of faiths are practiced, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Baháʼí, various Eastern Orthodox Churches, Sufism, Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religion and countless others. Immigrants from Asia for example, have formed a number of significant Buddhist congregations making the city home to the greatest variety of Buddhists in the world. The first Buddhist joss house was founded in the city in 1875.[153] Atheism and other secular beliefs are also common, as the city is the largest in the Western U.S. Unchurched Belt. Homelessness Main article: Homelessness in Los Angeles Homeless tents outside Los Angeles City Hall, 2021 As of January 2020, there are 41,290 homeless people in the City of Los Angeles, comprising roughly 62% of the homeless population of LA County.[158] This is an increase of 14.2% over the previous year (with a 12.7% increase in the overall homeless population of LA County).[159][160] The epicenter of homelessness in Los Angeles is the Skid Row neighborhood, which contains 8,000 homeless people, one of the largest stable populations of homeless people in the United States.[161][162] The increased homeless population in Los Angeles has been attributed to lack of housing affordability[163] and to substance abuse.[164] Almost 60 percent of the 82,955 people who became newly homeless in 2019 said their homelessness was because of economic hardship.[159] In Los Angeles, black people are roughly four times more likely to experience homelessness.[159][165] Crime Main article: Crime in Los Angeles See also: List of criminal gangs in Los Angeles Officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) In 1992, the city of Los Angeles recorded 1,092 murders.[166] Los Angeles experienced a significant decline in crime in the 1990s and late 2000s and reached a 50-year low in 2009 with 314 homicides.[167][168] This is a rate of 7.85 per 100,000 population—a major decrease from 1980 when a homicide rate of 34.2 per 100,000 was reported.[169][170] This included 15 officer-involved shootings. One shooting led to the death of a SWAT team member, Randal Simmons, the first in LAPD's history.[171] Los Angeles in the year of 2013 totaled 251 murders, a decrease of 16 percent from the previous year. Police speculate the drop resulted from a number of factors, including young people spending more time online.[172] In 2021, murders rose to the highest level since 2008 and there were 348.[173] In 2015, it was revealed that the LAPD had been under-reporting crime for eight years, making the crime rate in the city appear much lower than it really is.[174][175] The Dragna crime family and the Cohen crime family dominated organized crime in the city during the Prohibition era[176] and reached its peak during the 1940s and 1950s with the battle of Sunset Strip as part of the American Mafia, but has gradually declined since then with the rise of various black and Hispanic gangs in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[176] According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the city is home to 45,000 gang members, organized into 450 gangs.[177] Among them are the Crips and Bloods, which are both African American street gangs that originated in the South Los Angeles region. Latino street gangs such as the Sureños, a Mexican American street gang, and Mara Salvatrucha, which has mainly members of Salvadoran descent, all originated in Los Angeles. This has led to the city being referred to as the "Gang Capital of America".[178] Economy Further information: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce See also: Los Angeles County, California § Economy Employment by industry in Los Angeles County in 2015 The economy of Los Angeles is driven by international trade, entertainment (television, motion pictures, video games, music recording, and production), aerospace, technology, petroleum, fashion, apparel, and tourism.[citation needed] Other significant industries include finance, telecommunications, law, healthcare, and transportation. In the 2017 Global Financial Centres Index, Los Angeles was ranked the 19th most competitive financial center in the world and sixth most competitive in the U.S. after New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C..[179] Of the five major film studios, only Paramount Pictures is within Los Angeles' city limits;[180] it is located in the so-called Thirty-Mile Zone of entertainment headquarters in Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest manufacturing center in the United States.[181] The contiguous ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together comprise the busiest port in the United States by some measures and the fifth-busiest port in the world, vital to trade within the Pacific Rim.[181] The combined Port of Los Angeles-Port of Long Beach is the fifth busiest port in the world. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of over $1.0 trillion (as of 2018),[21] making it the third-largest economic metropolitan area in the world after Tokyo and New York.[21] Los Angeles has been classified an "alpha world city" according to a 2012 study by a group at Loughborough University.[182] The Department of Cannabis Regulation enforces cannabis legislation after the legalization of the sale and distribution of cannabis in 2016.[183] As of October 2019, more than 300 existing cannabis businesses (both retailers and their suppliers) have been granted approval to operate in what is considered the nation's largest market.[184][185] As of 2018, Los Angeles is home to three Fortune 500 companies: AECOM, CBRE Group, and Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co.[186] Other companies headquartered in Los Angeles and the surrounding metropolitan area include The Aerospace Corporation, California Pizza Kitchen,[187] Capital Group Companies, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, Dine Brands Global, DreamWorks Animation, Dollar Shave Club, Fandango Media, Farmers Insurance Group, Forever 21, Hulu, Panda Express, SpaceX, Ubisoft Film & Television, The Walt Disney Company, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Warner Music Group, and Trader Joe's. Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of the city. Largest non-government employers in Los Angeles County, August 2018[188] Rank Employer Employees 1 Kaiser Permanente 37,468 2 University of Southern California 21,055 3 Northrop Grumman Corp. 16,600 4 Providence Health and Services Southern California 15,952 5 Target Corp. 15,000 6 Ralphs/Food 4 Less (Kroger Co. Division) 14,970 7 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center 14,903 8 Walt Disney Co. 13,000 9 Allied Universal 12,879 10 NBC Universal 12,000 Arts and culture Main article: Culture of Los Angeles The city's historic center at Plaza de Los Ángeles near Calle Olvera Los Angeles is often billed as the creative capital of the world because one in every six of its residents works in a creative industry[189] and there are more artists, writers, filmmakers, actors, dancers and musicians living and working in Los Angeles than any other city at any other time in world history.[190] The city is also known for its prolific murals.[191] Landmarks See also: List of sites of interest in the Los Angeles area and National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles, California El Cabrillo, a Spanish Revival style National Historic Landmark The architecture of Los Angeles is influenced by its Spanish, Mexican, and American roots. Popular styles in the city include Spanish Colonial Revival style, Mission Revival style, California Churrigueresque style, Mediterranean Revival style, Art Deco style, and Mid-Century Modern style, among others. Important landmarks in Los Angeles include the Hollywood Sign,[192] Walt Disney Concert Hall, Capitol Records Building,[193] the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels,[194] Angels Flight,[195] Grauman's Chinese Theatre,[196] Dolby Theatre,[197] Griffith Observatory,[198] Getty Center,[199] Getty Villa,[200] Stahl House,[201] the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, L.A. Live,[202] the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Venice Canal Historic District and boardwalk, Theme Building, Bradbury Building, U.S. Bank Tower, Wilshire Grand Center, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles City Hall, Hollywood Bowl,[203] battleship USS Iowa, Watts Towers,[204] Staples Center, Dodger Stadium, and Olvera Street.[205] Movies and the performing arts Grauman's Chinese Theatre on the Hollywood Walk of Fame The performing arts play a major role in Los Angeles's cultural identity. According to the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, "there are more than 1,100 annual theatrical productions and 21 openings every week."[190] The Los Angeles Music Center is "one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation", with more than 1.3 million visitors per year.[206] The Walt Disney Concert Hall, centerpiece of the Music Center, is home to the prestigious Los Angeles Philharmonic.[207] Notable organizations such as Center Theatre Group, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Los Angeles Opera are also resident companies of the Music Center.[208][209][210] Talent is locally cultivated at premier institutions such as the Colburn School and the USC Thornton School of Music. Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood Hills The city's Hollywood neighborhood has been recognized as the center of the motion picture industry, having held this distinction since the early 20th century, and the Los Angeles area is also associated with being the center of the television industry.[211] The city is home to major film studios as well as major record labels. Los Angeles plays host to the annual Academy Awards, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Grammy Awards as well as many other entertainment industry awards shows. Los Angeles is the site of the USC School of Cinematic Arts which is the oldest film school in the United States.[212] Museums and galleries See also: List of museums in Los Angeles and List of museums in Los Angeles County, California The Getty Villa is one of the two campuses of the J. Paul Getty Museum, alongside the Getty Center There are 841 museums and art galleries in Los Angeles County,[213] more museums per capita than any other city in the U.S.[213] Some of the notable museums are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the largest art museum in the Western United States[214]), the Getty Center (part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthiest art institution[215]), the Petersen Automotive Museum,[216] the Huntington Library,[217] the Natural History Museum,[218] the Battleship Iowa,[219] The Broad, which houses over 2,000 works of contemporary art[220] and the Museum of Contemporary Art.[221] A significant number of art galleries are on Gallery Row, and tens of thousands attend the monthly Downtown Art Walk there.[222] Libraries Los Angeles Central Library The Los Angeles Public Library system operates 72 public libraries in the city.[223] Enclaves of unincorporated areas are served by branches of the County of Los Angeles Public Library, many of which are within walking distance to residents.[224] Cuisine Los Angeles' food culture is a fusion of global cuisine brought on by the city's rich immigrant history and population. As of 2022, the Michelin Guide recognized 10 restaurants granting 2 restaurants two stars and eight restaurants one star.[225] Latin American immigrants, particularly Mexican immigrants, brought tacos, burritos, quesadillas, tortas, tamales, and enchiladas served from food trucks and stands, taquerias, and cafés. Asian restaurants, many immigrant-owned, exist throughout the city with hotspots in Chinatown,[226] Koreatown,[227] and Little Tokyo.[228] Los Angeles also carries an outsized offering of vegan, vegetarian, and plant-based options. Sports See also: Sports in Los Angeles and History of the National Football League in Los Angeles Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Los Angeles and its metropolitan area are the home of eleven top-level professional sports teams, several of which play in neighboring communities but use Los Angeles in their name. These teams include the Los Angeles Dodgers[229] and Los Angeles Angels[230] of Major League Baseball (MLB), the Los Angeles Rams[231] and Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL), the Los Angeles Lakers[232] and Los Angeles Clippers[233] of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Los Angeles Kings[234] and Anaheim Ducks[235] of the National Hockey League (NHL), the Los Angeles Galaxy[236] and Los Angeles FC[237] of Major League Soccer (MLS), and the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).[238] Other notable sports teams include the UCLA Bruins and the USC Trojans in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), both of which are Division I teams in the Pac-12 Conference, but will soon be moved to the Big Ten Conference.[239] Dodger Stadium, home of the LA Dodgers of Major League Baseball Los Angeles is the second-largest city in the United States but hosted no NFL team between 1995 and 2015. At one time, the Los Angeles area hosted two NFL teams: the Rams and the Raiders. Both left the city in 1995, with the Rams moving to St. Louis, and the Raiders moving back to their original home of Oakland. After 21 seasons in St. Louis, on January 12, 2016, the NFL announced the Rams would be moving back to Los Angeles for the 2016 NFL season with its home games played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for four seasons.[240][241][242] Prior to 1995, the Rams played their home games in the Coliseum from 1946 to 1979 which made them the first professional sports team to play in Los Angeles, and then moved to Anaheim Stadium from 1980 until 1994. The San Diego Chargers announced on January 12, 2017, that they would also relocate back to Los Angeles (the first since its inaugural season in 1960) and become the Los Angeles Chargers beginning in the 2017 NFL season and played at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California for three seasons.[243] The Rams and the Chargers would soon move to the newly built SoFi Stadium, located in nearby Inglewood during the 2020 season.[244] Crypto.com Arena, home to the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Kings, and Los Angeles Sparks Los Angeles boasts a number of sports venues, including Dodger Stadium,[245] the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum,[246] BMO Stadium[247] and the Crypto.com Arena.[248] The Forum, SoFi Stadium, Dignity Health Sports Park, the Rose Bowl, Angel Stadium, and the Honda Center are also in adjacent cities and cities in Los Angeles's metropolitan area.[249] Los Angeles has twice hosted the Summer Olympic Games: in 1932 and in 1984, and will host the games for a third time in 2028.[250] Los Angeles will be the third city after London (1908, 1948 and 2012) and Paris (1900, 1924 and 2024) to host the Olympic Games three times. When the tenth Olympic Games were hosted in 1932, the former 10th Street was renamed Olympic Blvd. Los Angeles also hosted the Deaflympics in 1985[251] and Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2015.[252] BMO Stadium, home of Los Angeles FC of Major League Soccer 8 NFL Super Bowls were also held in the city and its surrounding areas- 2 at the Memorial Coliseum (the first Super Bowl, I and VII), 5 at the Rose Bowl in suburban Pasadena (XI, XIV, XVII, XXI, and XXVII), and 1 at the suburban Inglewood (LVI).[253] The Rose Bowl also hosts an annual and highly prestigious NCAA college football game called the Rose Bowl, which happens every New Year's Day. Los Angeles also hosted 8 FIFA World Cup soccer games at the Rose Bowl in 1994, including the final, where Brazil won. The Rose Bowl also hosted 4 matches in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, including the final, where the United States won against China on penalty kicks. This was the game where Brandi Chastain took her shirt off after she scored the tournament-winning penalty kick, creating an iconic image. Los Angeles will be one of eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup with matches set to be held at SoFi Stadium.[254] Los Angeles is one of six North American cities to have won championships in all five of its major leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA and MLS), having completed the feat with the Kings' 2012 Stanley Cup title.[255] Government Main article: Government of Los Angeles See also: Government of Los Angeles County Los Angeles City Hall, built in 1928, houses the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles City Council. Los Angeles is a charter city as opposed to a general law city. The current charter was adopted on June 8, 1999, and has been amended many times.[256] The elected government consists of the Los Angeles City Council and the mayor of Los Angeles, which operate under a mayor–council government, as well as the city attorney (not to be confused with the district attorney, a county office) and controller. The mayor is Karen Bass.[257] There are 15 city council districts. The city has many departments and appointed officers, including the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD),[258] the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners,[259] the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD),[260] the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA),[261] the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT),[262] and the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL).[263] The charter of the City of Los Angeles ratified by voters in 1999 created a system of advisory neighborhood councils that would represent the diversity of stakeholders, defined as those who live, work or own property in the neighborhood. The neighborhood councils are relatively autonomous and spontaneous in that they identify their own boundaries, establish their own bylaws, and elect their own officers. There are about 90 neighborhood councils. Residents of Los Angeles elect supervisors for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th supervisorial districts. Federal and state representation In the California State Assembly, Los Angeles is split between fourteen districts.[264] In the California State Senate, the city is split between eight districts.[265] In the United States House of Representatives, it is split among nine congressional districts.[266] Education Colleges and universities University of California, Los Angeles University of Southern California American Film Institute Loyola Marymount University Occidental College There are three public universities within the city limits: California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[267] Private colleges in the city include: American Film Institute Conservatory[268] Alliant International University[269] American Academy of Dramatic Arts (Los Angeles Campus)[270] American Jewish University[271] Abraham Lincoln University[272] The American Musical and Dramatic Academy – Los Angeles campus Antioch University's Los Angeles campus[273] Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science[274] Colburn School[275] Columbia College Hollywood[276] Emerson College (Los Angeles Campus)[277] Emperor's College[278] Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising's Los Angeles campus (FIDM) Los Angeles Film School[279] Loyola Marymount University (LMU is also the parent university of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles)[280] Mount St. Mary's College[281] National University of California[282] Occidental College ("Oxy")[283] Otis College of Art and Design (Otis)[284] Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)[285] Southwestern Law School[286] University of Southern California (USC)[287] Woodbury University[288] The community college system consists of nine campuses governed by the trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District: East Los Angeles College (ELAC)[289] Los Angeles City College (LACC)[290] Los Angeles Harbor College[291] Los Angeles Mission College[292] Los Angeles Pierce College[293] Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC)[294] Los Angeles Southwest College[295] Los Angeles Trade-Technical College[296] West Los Angeles College[297] There are numerous additional colleges and universities outside the city limits in the Greater Los Angeles area, including the Claremont Colleges consortium, which includes the most selective liberal arts colleges in the U.S., and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), one of the top STEM-focused research institutions in the world. Schools See also: Los Angeles County, California § Education; and List of high schools in Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles Unified School District serves almost all of the city of Los Angeles, as well as several surrounding communities, with a student population around 800,000.[298] After Proposition 13 was approved in 1978, urban school districts had considerable trouble with funding. LAUSD has become known for its underfunded, overcrowded and poorly maintained campuses, although its 162 Magnet schools help compete with local private schools. Several small sections of Los Angeles are in the Inglewood Unified School District,[299] and the Las Virgenes Unified School District.[300] The Los Angeles County Office of Education operates the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Media Main article: Media in Los Angeles See also: List of television shows set in Los Angeles and List of films set in Los Angeles The Hollywood Sign is a prominent symbol of the American film industry. The Los Angeles metro area is the second-largest broadcast designated market area in the U.S. (after New York) with 5,431,140 homes (4.956% of the U.S.), which is served by a wide variety of local AM and FM radio and television stations. Los Angeles and New York City are the only two media markets to have seven VHF allocations assigned to them.[301] The major daily English-language newspaper in the area is the Los Angeles Times.[302] La Opinión is the city's major daily Spanish-language paper.[303] The Korea Times is the city's major daily Korean-language paper while The World Journal is the city and county's major Chinese newspaper. The Los Angeles Sentinel is the city's major African-American weekly paper, boasting the largest African-American readership in the Western United States.[304] Investor's Business Daily is distributed from its LA corporate offices, which are headquartered in Playa del Rey.[305] The former LA Times headquarters As part of the region's aforementioned creative industry, the Big Four major broadcast television networks, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, all have production facilities and offices throughout various areas of Los Angeles. All four major broadcast television networks, plus major Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision, also own and operate stations that both serve the Los Angeles market and serve as each network's West Coast flagship station: ABC's KABC-TV (Channel 7),[306] CBS's KCBS-TV (Channel 2), Fox's KTTV-TV (Channel 11),[307] NBC's KNBC-TV (Channel 4),[308] MyNetworkTV's KCOP-TV (Channel 13), Telemundo's KVEA-TV (Channel 52), and Univision's KMEX-TV (Channel 34). The region also has four PBS stations, with KCET, re-joining the network as secondary affiliate in August 2019, after spending the previous eight years as the nation's largest independent public television station. KTBN (Channel 40) is the flagship station of the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network, based out of Santa Ana. A variety of independent television stations, such as KCAL-TV (Channel 9) and KTLA-TV (Channel 5), also operate in the area. Paramount Pictures Studios There are also a number of smaller regional newspapers, alternative weeklies and magazines, including the Los Angeles Register, Los Angeles Community News, (which focuses on coverage of the greater Los Angeles area), Los Angeles Daily News (which focuses coverage on the San Fernando Valley), LA Weekly, L.A. Record (which focuses coverage on the music scene in the Greater Los Angeles Area), Los Angeles Magazine, the Los Angeles Business Journal, the Los Angeles Daily Journal (legal industry paper), The Hollywood Reporter, Variety (both entertainment industry papers), and Los Angeles Downtown News.[309] In addition to the major papers, numerous local periodicals serve immigrant communities in their native languages, including Armenian, English, Korean, Persian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and Arabic. Many cities adjacent to Los Angeles also have their own daily newspapers whose coverage and availability overlaps with certain Los Angeles neighborhoods. Examples include The Daily Breeze (serving the South Bay), and The Long Beach Press-Telegram. Los Angeles arts, culture and nightlife news is also covered by a number of local and national online guides, including Time Out Los Angeles, Thrillist, Kristin's List, DailyCandy, Diversity News Magazine, LAist, and Flavorpill.[310][311][312][313] Infrastructure Transportation Main article: Transportation in Los Angeles Freeways Main article: Southern California freeways Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, connecting the Century Freeway (I-105) and the Harbor Freeway (I-110) in South LA. The city and the rest of the Los Angeles metropolitan area are served by an extensive network of freeways and highways. Texas Transportation Institute's annual Urban Mobility Report ranked Los Angeles area roads the most congested in the United States in 2019 as measured by annual delay per traveler, area residents experiencing a cumulative average of 119 hours waiting in traffic that year.[314] Los Angeles was followed by San Francisco/Oakland, Washington, D.C., and Miami. Despite the congestion in the city, the mean daily travel time for commuters in Los Angeles is shorter than other major cities, including New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. Los Angeles's mean travel time for work commutes in 2006 was 29.2 minutes, similar to those of San Francisco and Washington, D.C.[315] The major highways that connect LA to the rest of the nation include Interstate 5, which runs south through San Diego to Tijuana in Mexico and north through Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle to the Canada–US border; Interstate 10, the southernmost east–west, coast-to-coast Interstate Highway in the United States, going to Jacksonville, Florida; and U.S. Route 101, which heads to the California Central Coast, San Francisco, the Redwood Empire, and the Oregon and Washington coasts. Public transit Main article: Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Los Angeles Metro Rail is operated by LACMTA. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA County Metro) and other smaller regional agencies operate an extensive system of bus lines, as well as subway and light rail lines across Los Angeles County, with a combined monthly ridership (measured in individual boardings) of 38.8 million as of September 2011. The majority of this (30.5 million) is taken up by the city's bus system,[316] the second busiest in the country. The subway and light rail combined average the remaining roughly 8.2 million boardings per month.[316] LA County Metro recorded over 397 million boardings for the 2017 calendar year, including about 285 million bus riders and about 113 million riding on rail transit.[317] For the first quarter of 2018, there were just under 95 million system-wide boardings, down from about 98 million in 2017, and about 105 million in 2016.[318] In 2005, 10.2% of Los Angeles commuters rode some form of public transportation.[319] According to the 2016 American Community Survey, 9.2% of working Los Angeles (city) residents made the journey to work via public transportation.[320] Union Station is served by Amtrak California, Metrolink, and Metro Rail. The city's subway system is the ninth busiest in the United States and its light rail system is the country's busiest.[321] The rail system includes the B and D subway lines, as well as the A, C, E, and L light rail lines. In 2016, the E Line was extended to the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica. The Metro G and J lines are bus rapid transit lines with stops and frequency similar to those of light rail. As of 2022, the total number of light rail stations is 99. The city is also central to the commuter rail system Metrolink, which links Los Angeles to all neighboring counties as well as many suburbs.[322] Besides the rail service provided by Metrolink and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles is served by inter-city passenger trains from Amtrak. The main rail station in the city is Union Station just north of Downtown. In addition, the city directly contracts for local and commuter bus service through the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, or LADOT. Airports Main article: List of airports in the Los Angeles area Los Angeles Intl. Airport (LAX) is the 4th busiest airport in the world. The main international and domestic airport serving Los Angeles is Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX, ICAO: KLAX), commonly referred to by its airport code, LAX.[323] It is located on the Westside of Los Angeles near the Sofi Stadium in Inglewood. Other major nearby commercial airports include: (IATA: ONT, ICAO: KONT) Ontario International Airport, owned by the city of Ontario, CA; serves the Inland Empire.[324] (IATA: BUR, ICAO: KBUR) Hollywood Burbank Airport, jointly owned by the cities of Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. Formerly known as Bob Hope Airport and Burbank Airport, the closest airport to Downtown Los Angeles serves the San Fernando, San Gabriel, and Antelope Valleys.[325] (IATA: LGB, ICAO: KLGB) Long Beach Airport, serves the Long Beach/Harbor area.[326] (IATA: SNA, ICAO: KSNA) John Wayne Airport of Orange County. One of the world's busiest general-aviation airports is also in Los Angeles: Van Nuys Airport (IATA: VNY, ICAO: KVNY).[327] Seaports Vincent Thomas Bridge at Terminal Island in the Port of Los Angeles The Port of Los Angeles is in San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of Downtown. Also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT LA, the port complex occupies 7,500 acres (30 km2) of land and water along 43 miles (69 km) of waterfront. It adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach.[328] The sea ports of the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach together make up the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor.[329][330] Together, both ports are the fifth busiest container port in the world, with a trade volume of over 14.2 million TEU's in 2008.[331] Singly, the Port of Los Angeles is the busiest container port in the United States and the largest cruise ship center on the West Coast of the United States – The Port of Los Angeles's World Cruise Center served about 590,000 passengers in 2014.[332] There are also smaller, non-industrial harbors along Los Angeles's coastline. The port includes four bridges: the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Henry Ford Bridge, Long Beach International Gateway Bridge, and Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge. Passenger ferry service from San Pedro to the city of Avalon (and Two Harbors) on Santa Catalina Island is provided by Catalina Express. Notable people Main article: List of people from Los Angeles Sister cities A sign near LA City Hall displaying Los Angeles' sister cities. Los Angeles has 25 sister cities,[333] listed chronologically by year joined:  Eilat, Israel (1959)  Nagoya, Japan (1959)  Salvador, Brazil (1962)  Bordeaux, France (1964)[334][335]  Berlin, Germany (1967)[336]  Lusaka, Zambia (1968)  Mexico City, Mexico (1969)  Auckland, New Zealand (1971)  Busan, South Korea (1971)  Mumbai, India (1972)  Tehran, Iran (1972)  Taipei, Taiwan (1979)  Guangzhou, China (1981)[337]  Athens, Greece (1984)  Saint Petersburg, Russia (1984)  Vancouver, Canada (1986)[338]  Giza, Egypt (1989)  Jakarta, Indonesia (1990)  Kaunas, Lithuania (1991)  Makati, Philippines (1992)  Split, Croatia (1993)[339]  San Salvador, El Salvador (2005)  Beirut, Lebanon (2006)  Ischia, Campania, Italy (2006)  Yerevan, Armenia (2007)[340] In addition, Los Angeles has the following "friendship cities":  Łódź, Poland Australia City of Melbourne, Australia  Manchester, United Kingdom[341]  Tel Aviv, Israel[342] See also Largest cities in Southern California Largest cities in the Americas List of hotels in Los Angeles List of largest houses in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area List of museums in Los Angeles List of museums in Los Angeles County, California List of music venues in Los Angeles List of people from Los Angeles List of tallest buildings in Los Angeles National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles, California USS Los Angeles, 4 ships (including 1 airship) Ashkenazi Jews (/ˌɑːʃkəˈnɑːzi, ˌæʃ-/ AHSH-kə-NAH-zee, ASH-;[19] Hebrew: יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, romanized: Yehudei Ashkenaz, lit. 'Jews of Germania'; Yiddish: אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, romanized: Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim,[a] are a Jewish diaspora population who formed in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE.[21] Their traditional diaspora language is Yiddish (a West Germanic language with Jewish and Slavic linguistic elements, which uses the Hebrew alphabet),[21] which developed during the Middle Ages after they had moved from Germany and France into Northern Europe and Eastern Europe. For centuries, Ashkenazim in Europe used Hebrew only as a literary and sacred language until the revival of Hebrew as a common language in 20th-century Israel. Throughout their numerous centuries living in Europe, Ashkenazim have made many important contributions to its philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, music, and science.[22][23][24][25] The rabbinical term Ashkenazi refers to diaspora Jews who established communities along the Rhine in western Germany and northern France during the Middle Ages.[26] Upon their arrival, they adapted traditions carried over from the Holy Land, Babylonia, and the western Mediterranean to their new European environment.[27] The Ashkenazi religious rite developed in cities such as Mainz, Worms, and Troyes. The eminent rishon from medieval France, Rashi, has had a significant influence on the interpretations of Judaism by Ashkenazim. In the late Middle Ages, due to widespread persecution, the majority of the Ashkenazi population steadily shifted eastward,[28] moving out of the Holy Roman Empire into the areas that later became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; these areas today comprise parts of present-day Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.[29][30] Over the course of the late-18th and 19th centuries, those Jews who remained in or returned to historical German lands generated a cultural reorientation; under the influence of the Haskalah and the struggle for emancipation as well as the intellectual and cultural ferment in urban centres, they gradually abandoned the use of Yiddish and adopted German while developing new forms of Jewish religious life and cultural identity.[31] It is estimated that in the 11th century, Ashkenazim comprised 3 percent of the global Jewish population, while an estimate made in 1930 (near the population's peak) listed them as comprising 92 percent of the world's Jewish population.[32] However, the Ashkenazi population was largely destroyed as a result of the Holocaust that was carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II, which affected almost every Jewish European family.[33][34] Immediately prior to the Holocaust, the worldwide Jewish population stood at approximately 16.7 million people.[35][better source needed] Statistical figures vary for the contemporary demography of Ashkenazi Jews, ranging from 10 million[1] to 11.2 million.[2] Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio D. Pergola, in a rough calculation of Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews, implies that Ashkenazi Jews made up 65–70 percent of Jews worldwide in 2000.[36] Other estimates place the Ashkenazim as comprising upwards of 75 percent of the global Jewish population.[37] Genetic studies on Ashkenazi Jews—researching both their paternal and maternal lineages as well as autosomal DNA—indicate that they are of mixed Levantine and European (mainly southern European) ancestry. These studies have arrived at diverging conclusions regarding both the degree and the sources of their European admixture, with some focusing on the extent of the European genetic origin observed in Ashkenazi maternal lineages, which is in contrast to the predominant Middle Eastern genetic origin observed in Ashkenazi paternal lineages.[38][39][40][41][42] Etymology The name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Japhet, son of Noah, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10). The name of Gomer has often been linked to the Cimmerians. The Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from Assyrian Aškūza (cuneiform Aškuzai/Iškuzai), a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates;[43] the name Aškūza is identified with the Scythians.[44][45] The intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a vav ו‎ with a nun נ‎.[45][46][47] In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni and Ararat (corresponding to Urartu), called on by God to resist Babylon.[47][48] In the Yoma tractate of the Babylonian Talmud the name Gomer is rendered as Germania, which elsewhere in rabbinical literature was identified with Germanikia in northwestern Syria, but later became associated with Germania. Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia, viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes, as early as a 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius.[49] In the 10th-century History of Armenia of Yovhannes Drasxanakertc'i (1.15), Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia,[50] as it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene, Khazaria, Crimea and areas to the east.[51] His contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with the Saquliba or Slavic territories,[52] and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe.[51] In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical "Ashkenaz" with Khazaria.[53] Sometime in the Early Medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term.[47][failed verification] Conforming to the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was denominated Sefarad (Obadiah 20), France was called Tsarefat (1 Kings 17:9), and Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan.[54] By the high medieval period, Talmudic commentators like Rashi began to use Ashkenaz/Eretz Ashkenaz to designate Germany, earlier known as Loter,[47][49] where, especially in the Rhineland communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the most important Jewish communities arose.[55] Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz (Ashkenazi language) to describe Yiddish, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to the Crusaders as Ashkenazim.[49] Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany and France.[56] History This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (January 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Like other Jewish ethnic groups, the Ashkenazi Jews originate from the Israelites[57][58][59] and Hebrews[60][61] of historical Israel and Judah. Ashkenazi Jews share a significant amount of ancestry with other Jewish populations and derive their ancestry mostly from populations in the Middle East and Southern Europe.[62] Other than their origins in ancient Israel, the question of how Ashkenazi Jews came to exist as a distinct community is unknown, and has given rise to several theories.[63][64] Early Jewish communities in Europe Beginning in the fourth century BCE, Jewish colonies sprang up in southern Europe, including the Aegean Islands, Greece, and Italy. Jews left ancient Israel for a number of causes, including a number of push and pull factors. More Jews moved into these communities as a result of wars, persecution, unrest, and for opportunities in trade and commerce. Jews migrated to southern Europe from the Middle East voluntarily for opportunities in trade and commerce. Following Alexander the Great's conquests, Jews migrated to Greek settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean, spurred on by economic opportunities. Jewish economic migration to southern Europe is also believed to have occurred during the Roman period. In 63 BCE, the Siege of Jerusalem saw the Roman Republic conquer Judea, and thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves. After gaining their freedom, they settled permanently in Rome as traders.[65] It is likely that there was an additional influx of Jewish slaves taken to southern Europe by Roman forces after the capture of Jerusalem by the forces of Herod the Great with assistance from Roman forces in 37 BCE. It is known that Jewish war captives were sold into slavery after the suppression of a minor Jewish revolt in 53 BCE, and some were probably taken to southern Europe.[66] Regarding Jewish settlements founded in southern Europe during the Roman era, E. Mary Smallwood wrote that "no date or origin can be assigned to the numerous settlements eventually known in the west, and some may have been founded as a result of the dispersal of Palestinian Jews after the revolts of AD 66–70 and 132–135, but it is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BC, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce."[67][68][69] Jewish-Roman Wars The first and second centuries CE saw a series of unsuccessful large-scale Jewish revolts against Rome. The Roman suppression of these revolts led to wide-scale destruction, a very high toll of life and enslavement. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) erupted. Judea's countryside was devastated, and many were killed, displaced or sold into slavery.[70][71][72][73] Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina, and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina.[74][75] Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt.[76] With their national aspirations crushed and widespread devastation in Judea, despondent Jews migrated out of Judea in the aftermath of both revolts, and many settled in southern Europe. In contrast to the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the movement was by no means a singular, centralized event, and a Jewish diaspora had already been established before. During both of these rebellions, many Jews were captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, 97,000 Jews were sold as slaves in the aftermath of the first revolt.[77] In one occasion, Vespasian reportedly ordered 6,000 Jewish prisoners of war from Galilee to work on the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece.[78] Jewish slaves and their children eventually gained their freedom and joined local free Jewish communities.[79] Late Antiquity Many Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until Emperor Caracalla granted all free peoples this privilege in 212 CE. Jews were required to pay a poll tax until the reign of Emperor Julian in 363 CE. In the late Roman Empire, Jews were free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. But, after Christianity became the official religion of Rome and Constantinople in 380 CE, Jews were increasingly marginalized. The Synagogue in the Agora of Athens is dated to the period between 267 and 396 CE. The Stobi Synagogue in Macedonia was built on the ruins of a more ancient synagogue in the 4th century, while later in the 5th century, the synagogue was transformed into a Christian basilica.[80] Hellenistic Judaism thrived in Antioch and Alexandria, and many of these Greek-speaking Jews would convert to Christianity.[81][better source needed] Sporadic[82] epigraphic evidence in gravesite excavations, particularly in Brigetio (Szőny), Aquincum (Óbuda), Intercisa (Dunaújváros), Triccinae (Sárvár), Savaria (Szombathely), Sopianae (Pécs) in Hungary, and Mursa (Osijek) in Croatia, attest to the presence of Jews after the 2nd and 3rd centuries where Roman garrisons were established.[83] There was a sufficient number of Jews in Pannonia to form communities and build a synagogue. Jewish troops were among the Syrian soldiers transferred there, and replenished from the Middle East. After 175 CE Jews and especially Syrians came from Antioch, Tarsus, and Cappadocia. Others came from Italy and the Hellenized parts of the Roman Empire. The excavations suggest they first lived in isolated enclaves attached to Roman legion camps and intermarried with other similar oriental families within the military orders of the region.[82] Raphael Patai states that later Roman writers remarked that they differed little in either customs, manner of writing, or names from the people among whom they dwelt; and it was especially difficult to differentiate Jews from the Syrians.[84][44] After Pannonia was ceded to the Huns in 433, the garrison populations were withdrawn to Italy, and only a few, enigmatic traces remain of a possible Jewish presence in the area some centuries later.[85] No evidence has yet been found of a Jewish presence in antiquity in Germany beyond its Roman border, nor in Eastern Europe. In Gaul and Germany itself, with the possible exception of Trier and Cologne, the archeological evidence suggests at most a fleeting presence of very few Jews, primarily itinerant traders or artisans.[86] Estimating the number of Jews in antiquity is a task fraught with peril due to the nature of and lack of accurate documentation. The number of Jews in the Roman Empire for a long time was based on the accounts of Syrian Orthodox bishop Bar Hebraeus who lived between 1226 and 1286 CE, who stated by the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, as many as six million Jews were already living in the Roman Empire, a conclusion which has been contested as highly exaggerated. The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave a figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world. Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing.[87] The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in the mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman. However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens and thus included non-Jews, the figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon.[88]: 90, 94, 104–105 [89] Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken.[90]: 185  Philo gives a figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. Brian McGing rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world.[88]: 97–103  Sometimes the scholars who accepted the high number of Jews in Rome had explained it by Jews having been active in proselytising.[91] The idea of ancient Jews trying to convert Gentiles to Judaism is nowadays rejected by several scholars.[92] The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of the land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The revolts in and suppression of diaspora communities in Egypt, Libya and Crete during the Kitos War of 115–117 CE had a severe impact on the Jewish diaspora. A substantial Jewish population emerged in northern Gaul by the Middle Ages,[93] but Jewish communities existed in 465 CE in Brittany, in 524 CE in Valence, and in 533 CE in Orléans.[94] Throughout this period and into the early Middle Ages, some Jews assimilated into the dominant Greek and Latin cultures, mostly through conversion to Christianity.[95][better source needed] King Dagobert I of the Franks expelled the Jews from his Merovingian kingdom in 629. Jews in former Roman territories faced new challenges as harsher anti-Jewish Church rulings were enforced. Early Middle Ages Charlemagne's expansion of the Frankish empire around 800, including northern Italy and Rome, brought on a brief period of stability and unity in Francia. This created opportunities for Jewish merchants to settle again north of the Alps. Charlemagne granted the Jews freedoms similar to those once enjoyed under the Roman Empire. In addition, Jews from southern Italy, fleeing religious persecution, began to move into Central Europe.[citation needed] Returning to Frankish lands, many Jewish merchants took up occupations in finance and commerce, including money lending, or usury. (Church legislation banned Christians from lending money in exchange for interest.) From Charlemagne's time to the present, Jewish life in northern Europe is well documented. By the 11th century, when Rashi of Troyes wrote his commentaries, Jews in what came to be known as "Ashkenaz" were known for their halakhic learning, and Talmudic studies. They were criticized by Sephardim and other Jewish scholars in Islamic lands for their lack of expertise in Jewish jurisprudence and general ignorance of Hebrew linguistics and literature.[96][dubious – discuss] Yiddish emerged as a result of Judeo-Latin language contact with various High German vernaculars in the medieval period.[97] It is a Germanic language written in Hebrew letters, and heavily influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic, with some elements of Romance and later Slavic languages.[98][better source needed] High and Late Middle Ages migrations Historical records show evidence of Jewish communities north of the Alps and Pyrenees as early as the 8th and 9th centuries. By the 11th century, Jewish settlers moving from southern European and Middle Eastern centers (such as Babylonian Jews[99] and Persian Jews[100]) and Maghrebi Jewish traders from North Africa who had contacts with their Ashkenazi brethren and had visited each other from time to time in each's domain[101] appear to have begun to settle in the north, especially along the Rhine, often in response to new economic opportunities and at the invitation of local Christian rulers. Thus Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, invited Jacob ben Yekutiel and his fellow Jews to settle in his lands; and soon after the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror likewise extended a welcome to continental Jews to take up residence there. Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann called on the Jews of Mainz to relocate to Speyer. In all of these decisions, the idea that Jews had the know-how and capacity to jump-start the economy, improve revenues, and enlarge trade seems to have played a prominent role.[102] Typically, Jews relocated close to the markets and churches in town centres, where, though they came under the authority of both royal and ecclesiastical powers, they were accorded administrative autonomy.[102] In the 11th century, both Rabbinic Judaism and the culture of the Babylonian Talmud that underlies it became established in southern Italy and then spread north to Ashkenaz.[103] Numerous massacres of Jews occurred throughout Europe during the Christian Crusades. Inspired by the preaching of a First Crusade, crusader mobs in France and Germany perpetrated the Rhineland massacres of 1096, devastating Jewish communities along the Rhine River, including the SHuM cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The cluster of cities contain the earliest Jewish settlements north of the Alps, and played a major role in the formation of Ashkenazi Jewish religious tradition,[27] along with Troyes and Sens in France. Nonetheless, Jewish life in Germany persisted, while some Ashkenazi Jews joined Sephardic Jewry in Spain.[104][better source needed] Expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), and parts of Germany (15th century), gradually pushed Ashkenazi Jewry eastward, to Poland (10th century), Lithuania (10th century), and Russia (12th century). Over this period of several hundred years, some have suggested, Jewish economic activity was focused on trade, business management, and financial services, due to several presumed factors: Christian European prohibitions restricting certain activities by Jews, preventing certain financial activities (such as "usurious" loans)[105][page needed] between Christians, high rates of literacy, near-universal male education, and ability of merchants to rely upon and trust family members living in different regions and countries. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at its greatest extent. By the 15th century, the Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Poland were the largest Jewish communities of the Diaspora.[106][better source needed] This area, which eventually fell under the domination of Russia, Austria, and Prussia (Germany), would remain the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust. The answer to why there was so little assimilation of Jews in central and eastern Europe for so long would seem to lie in part in the probability that the alien surroundings in central and eastern Europe were not conducive, though there was some assimilation. Furthermore, Jews lived almost exclusively in shtetls, maintained a strong system of education for males, heeded rabbinic leadership, and had a very different lifestyle to that of their neighbours; all of these tendencies increased with every outbreak of antisemitism.[107] In parts of Eastern Europe, before the arrival of the Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe, some non-Ashkenazi Jews were present who spoke Leshon Knaan and held various other Non-Ashkenazi traditions and customs.[108] In 1966, the historian Cecil Roth questioned the inclusion of all Yiddish speaking Jews as Ashkenazim in descent, suggesting that upon the arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe to Eastern Europe, from the Middle Ages to the 16th century, there were a substantial number of non-Ashkenazim Jews already there who later abandoned their original Eastern European Jewish culture in favor of the Ashkenazi one.[109] However, according to more recent research, mass migrations of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews occurred to Eastern Europe, from Central Europe in the west, who due to high birth rates absorbed and largely replaced the preceding non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups of Eastern Europe (whose numbers the demographer Sergio Della Pergola considers to have been small).[110] Genetic evidence also indicates that Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews largely descend from Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from central to eastern Europe and subsequently experienced high birthrates and genetic isolation.[111] Some Jewish immigration from southern Europe to Eastern Europe continued into the early modern period. During the 16th century, as conditions for Italian Jews worsened, many Jews from Venice and the surrounding area migrated to Poland and Lithuania. During the 16th and 17th centuries, some Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews from throughout the Ottoman Empire migrated to Eastern Europe, as did Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews and Persian Jews.[112][113][114][115] Medieval references Jews from Worms (Germany) wearing the mandatory yellow badge. In the first half of the 11th century, Hai Gaon refers to questions that had been addressed to him from Ashkenaz, by which he undoubtedly means Germany. Rashi in the latter half of the 11th century refers to both the language of Ashkenaz[116] and the country of Ashkenaz.[117] During the 12th century, the word appears quite frequently. In the Mahzor Vitry, the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of the synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances.[118] In the literature of the 13th century, references to the land and the language of Ashkenaz often occur. Examples include Solomon ben Aderet's Responsa (vol. i., No. 395); the Responsa of Asher ben Jehiel (pp. 4, 6); his Halakot (Berakot i. 12, ed. Wilna, p. 10); the work of his son Jacob ben Asher, Tur Orach Chayim (chapter 59); the Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet (numbers 193, 268, 270). In the Midrash compilation, Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Berechiah mentions Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah as German tribes or as German lands. It may correspond to a Greek word that may have existed in the Greek dialect of the Jews in Syria Palaestina, or the text is corrupted from "Germanica". This view of Berechiah is based on the Talmud (Yoma 10a; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 71b), where Gomer, the father of Ashkenaz, is translated by Germamia, which evidently stands for Germany, and which was suggested by the similarity of the sound. In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern and western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany and Poland. Thus the prayer-book of Isaiah Horowitz, and many others, give the piyyutim according to the Minhag of Ashkenaz and Poland. According to 16th-century mystic Rabbi Elijah of Chelm, Ashkenazi Jews lived in Jerusalem during the 11th century. The story is told that a German-speaking Jew saved the life of a young German man surnamed Dolberger. So when the knights of the First Crusade came to siege Jerusalem, one of Dolberger's family members who was among them rescued Jews in Palestine and carried them back to Worms to repay the favor.[119] Further evidence of German communities in the holy city comes in the form of halakhic questions sent from Germany to Jerusalem during the second half of the 11th century.[120] Modern history Material relating to the history of German Jews has been preserved in the communal accounts of certain communities on the Rhine, a Memorbuch, and a Liebesbrief, documents that are now part of the Sassoon Collection.[121] Heinrich Graetz also added to the history of German Jewry in modern times in the abstract of his seminal work, History of the Jews, which he entitled "Volksthümliche Geschichte der Juden." In an essay on Sephardi Jewry, Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs[122] summarized the demographic history of Ashkenazi Jews in the last thousand years. He noted that at the end of the 11th century, 97% of world Jewry was Sephardic and 3% Ashkenazi; in the mid-17th century, "Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two"; by the end of the 18th century, "Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe versus the Ottoman Muslim world."[122] By 1930, Arthur Ruppin estimated that Ashkenazi Jews accounted for nearly 92% of world Jewry.[32] These factors are sheer demography showing the migration patterns of Jews from Southern and Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe. In 1740, a family from Lithuania became the first Ashkenazi Jews to settle in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.[123] In the generations after emigration from the west, Jewish communities in places like Poland, Russia, and Belarus enjoyed a comparatively stable socio-political environment. A thriving publishing industry and the printing of hundreds of biblical commentaries precipitated the development of the Hasidic movement as well as major Jewish academic centers.[124] After two centuries of comparative tolerance in the new nations, massive westward emigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries in response to pogroms in the east and the economic opportunities offered in other parts of the world. Ashkenazi Jews have made up the majority of the American Jewish community since 1750.[106] In the context of the European Enlightenment, Jewish emancipation began in 18th century France and spread throughout Western and Central Europe. Disabilities that had limited the rights of Jews since the Middle Ages were abolished, including the requirements to wear distinctive clothing, pay special taxes, and live in ghettos isolated from non-Jewish communities and the prohibitions on certain professions. Laws were passed to integrate Jews into their host countries, forcing Ashkenazi Jews to adopt family names (they had formerly used patronymics). Newfound inclusion into public life led to cultural growth in the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, with its goal of integrating modern European values into Jewish life.[125] As a reaction to increasing antisemitism and assimilation following the emancipation, Zionism developed in central Europe.[126] Other Jews, particularly those in the Pale of Settlement, turned to socialism. These tendencies would be united in Labor Zionism, the founding ideology of the State of Israel. The Holocaust Of the estimated 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of World War II, the majority of whom were Ashkenazi, about 6 million – more than two-thirds – were systematically murdered in the Holocaust. These included 3 million of 3.3 million Polish Jews (91%); 900,000 of 1.5 million in Ukraine (60%); and 50–90% of the Jews of other Slavic nations, Germany, Hungary, and the Baltic states, and over 25% of the Jews in France. Sephardi communities suffered similar devastation in a few countries, including Greece, the Netherlands and the former Yugoslavia.[127][better source needed] As the large majority of the victims were Ashkenazi Jews, their percentage dropped from an estimate of 92% of world Jewry in 1930[32] to nearly 80% of world Jewry today. The Holocaust also effectively put an end to the dynamic development of the Yiddish language in the previous decades, as the vast majority of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, around 5 million, were Yiddish speakers.[128] Many of the surviving Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to countries such as Israel, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and the United States after the war.[citation needed] Following the Holocaust, some sources place Ashkenazim today as making up approximately 83–85 percent of Jews worldwide,[129][130][131][132] while Sergio DellaPergola in a rough calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, implies that Ashkenazi make up a notably lower figure, less than 74%.[36] Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide.[37] Israel Main article: Ashkenazi Jews in Israel In Israel, the term Ashkenazi is now used in a manner unrelated to its original meaning, often applied to all Jews who settled in Europe and sometimes including those whose ethnic background is actually Sephardic. Jews of any non-Ashkenazi background, including Mizrahi, Yemenite, Kurdish and others who have no connection with the Iberian Peninsula, have similarly come to be lumped together as Sephardic. Jews of mixed background are increasingly common, partly because of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi, and partly because many do not see such historic markers as relevant to their life experiences as Jews.[133] Religious Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel are obliged to follow the authority of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi in halakhic matters. In this respect, a religiously Ashkenazi Jew is an Israeli who is more likely to support certain religious interests in Israel, including certain political parties. These political parties result from the fact that a portion of the Israeli electorate votes for Jewish religious parties; although the electoral map changes from one election to another, there are generally several small parties associated with the interests of religious Ashkenazi Jews. The role of religious parties, including small religious parties that play important roles as coalition members, results in turn from Israel's composition as a complex society in which competing social, economic, and religious interests stand for election to the Knesset, a unicameral legislature with 120 seats.[134] Ashkenazi Jews have played a prominent role in the economy, media, and politics[135] of Israel since its founding. During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict occurred between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim). The roots of this conflict, which still exists to a much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, are chiefly attributed to the concept of the "melting pot".[136] That is to say, all Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel were strongly encouraged to "meltdown" their own particular exilic identities[137] within the general social "pot" in order to become Israeli.[138] Definition See also: Who is a Jew? By religion Religious Jews have minhagim, customs, in addition to halakha, or religious law, and different interpretations of the law. Different groups of religious Jews in different geographic areas historically adopted different customs and interpretations. On certain issues, Orthodox Jews are required to follow the customs of their ancestors and do not believe they have the option of picking and choosing. For this reason, observant Jews at times find it important for religious reasons to ascertain who their household's religious ancestors are in order to know what customs their household should follow. These times include, for example, when two Jews of different ethnic background marry, when a non-Jew converts to Judaism and determines what customs to follow for the first time, or when a lapsed or less observant Jew returns to traditional Judaism and must determine what was done in his or her family's past. In this sense, "Ashkenazic" refers both to a family ancestry and to a body of customs binding on Jews of that ancestry. Reform Judaism, which does not necessarily follow those minhagim, did nonetheless originate among Ashkenazi Jews.[139][better source needed] In a religious sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is any Jew whose family tradition and ritual follow Ashkenazi practice. Until the Ashkenazi community first began to develop in the Early Middle Ages, the centers of Jewish religious authority were in the Islamic world, at Baghdad and in Islamic Spain. Ashkenaz (Germany) was so distant geographically that it developed a minhag of its own. Ashkenazi Hebrew came to be pronounced in ways distinct from other forms of Hebrew.[140][better source needed] In this respect, the counterpart of Ashkenazi is Sephardic, since most non-Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews follow Sephardic rabbinical authorities, whether or not they are ethnically Sephardic. By tradition, a Sephardic or Mizrahi woman who marries into an Orthodox or Haredi Ashkenazi Jewish family raises her children to be Ashkenazi Jews; conversely an Ashkenazi woman who marries a Sephardi or Mizrahi man is expected to take on Sephardic practice and the children inherit a Sephardic identity, though in practice many families compromise. A convert generally follows the practice of the beth din that converted him or her. With the integration of Jews from around the world in Israel, North America, and other places, the religious definition of an Ashkenazi Jew is blurring, especially outside Orthodox Judaism.[141] New developments in Judaism often transcend differences in religious practice between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. In North American cities, social trends such as the chavurah movement, and the emergence of "post-denominational Judaism"[142][143] often bring together younger Jews of diverse ethnic backgrounds. In recent years, there has been increased interest in Kabbalah, which many Ashkenazi Jews study outside of the Yeshiva framework. Another trend is the new popularity of ecstatic worship in the Jewish Renewal movement and the Carlebach style minyan, both of which are nominally of Ashkenazi origin.[144] Outside of Haredi communities, the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew has also drastically declined in favor of the Sephardi-based pronunciation of Modern Hebrew. By culture This section contains information of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject. Please help improve this section by clarifying or removing indiscriminate details. Non-important content should likely be moved to another article or removed. (June 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ashkenazi Jews" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Culturally, an Ashkenazi Jew can be identified by the concept of Yiddishkeit, which means "Jewishness" in the Yiddish language.[145] Yiddishkeit is specifically the Jewishness of Ashkenazi Jews.[146] Before the Haskalah and the emancipation of Jews in Europe, this meant the study of Torah and Talmud for men, and a family and communal life governed by the observance of Jewish Law for men and women. From the Rhineland to Riga to Romania, most Jews prayed in liturgical Ashkenazi Hebrew, and spoke Yiddish in their secular lives. But with modernization, Yiddishkeit now encompasses not just Orthodoxy and Hasidism, but a broad range of movements, ideologies, practices, and traditions in which Ashkenazi Jews have participated and somehow retained a sense of Jewishness. Although a far smaller number of Jews still speak Yiddish, Yiddishkeit can be identified in manners of speech, in styles of humor, in patterns of association. Broadly speaking, a Jew is one who associates culturally with Jews, supports Jewish institutions, reads Jewish books and periodicals, attends Jewish movies and theater, travels to Israel, visits historical synagogues, and so forth. It is a definition that applies to Jewish culture in general, and to Ashkenazi Yiddishkeit in particular. As Ashkenazi Jews moved away from Europe, mostly in the form of aliyah to Israel, or immigration to North America, and other English-speaking areas such as South Africa; and Europe (particularly France) and Latin America, the geographic isolation that gave rise to Ashkenazim have given way to mixing with other cultures, and with non-Ashkenazi Jews who, similarly, are no longer isolated in distinct geographic locales. Hebrew has replaced Yiddish as the primary Jewish language for many Ashkenazi Jews, although many Hasidic and Hareidi groups continue to use Yiddish in daily life. (There are numerous Ashkenazi Jewish anglophones and Russian-speakers as well, although English and Russian are not originally Jewish languages.) France's blended Jewish community is typical of the cultural recombination that is going on among Jews throughout the world. Although France expelled its original Jewish population in the Middle Ages, by the time of the French Revolution, there were two distinct Jewish populations. One consisted of Sephardic Jews, originally refugees from the Inquisition and concentrated in the southwest, while the other community was Ashkenazi, concentrated in formerly German Alsace, and mainly speaking a German dialect similar to Yiddish. (The third community of Provençal Jews living in Comtat Venaissin were technically outside France, and were later absorbed into the Sephardim.) The two communities were so separate and different that the National Assembly emancipated them separately in 1790 and 1791.[147][better source needed] But after emancipation, a sense of a unified French Jewry emerged, especially when France was wracked by the Dreyfus affair in the 1890s. In the 1920s and 1930s, Ashkenazi Jews from Europe arrived in large numbers as refugees from antisemitism, the Russian revolution, and the economic turmoil of the Great Depression. By the 1930s, Paris had a vibrant Yiddish culture, and many Jews were involved in diverse political movements. After the Vichy years and the Holocaust, the French Jewish population was augmented once again, first by Ashkenazi refugees from Central Europe, and later by Sephardi immigrants and refugees from North Africa, many of them francophone. Ashkenazi Jews did not record their traditions or achievements by text, instead these traditions were passed down orally from one generation to the next.[148] The desire to maintain pre-Holocaust traditions relating to Ashkenazi culture has often been met with criticism by Jews in Eastern Europe.[148] Reasoning for this could be related to the development of a new style of Jewish arts and culture developed by the Jews of Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s, which in conjunction with the decimation of European Ashkenazi Jews and their culture by the Nazi regime made it easier to assimilate to the new style of ritual rather than try to repair the older traditions.[149] This new style of tradition was referred to as the Mediterranean Style, and was noted for its simplicity and metaphorical rejuvenation of Jews abroad.[149] This was intended to replace the Galut traditions, which were more sorrowful in practice.[149] Then, in the 1990s, yet another Ashkenazi Jewish wave began to arrive from countries of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe. The result is a pluralistic Jewish community that still has some distinct elements of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic culture. But in France, it is becoming much more difficult to sort out the two, and a distinctly French Jewishness has emerged.[150] By ethnicity In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is one whose ancestry can be traced to the Jews who settled in Central Europe. For roughly a thousand years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe, despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Human geneticists have argued that genetic variations have been identified that show high frequencies among Ashkenazi Jews, but not in the general European population, be they for patrilineal markers (Y-chromosome haplotypes) and for matrilineal markers (mitotypes).[151] Since the middle of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities and with people of region[152] Customs, laws and traditions The example of the chevra kadisha, the Jewish burial society, Prague, 1772 The Halakhic practices of (Orthodox) Ashkenazi Jews may differ from those of Sephardi Jews, particularly in matters of custom. Differences are noted in the Shulkhan Arukh itself, in the gloss of Moses Isserles. Well known differences in practice include: Observance of Pesach (Passover): Ashkenazi Jews traditionally refrain from eating legumes, grain, millet, and rice (quinoa, however, has become accepted as foodgrain in the North American communities), whereas Sephardi Jews typically do not prohibit these foods. Ashkenazi Jews freely mix and eat fish and milk products; some Sephardic Jews refrain from doing so. Ashkenazim are more permissive toward the usage of wigs as a hair covering for married and widowed women. In the case of kashrut for meat, conversely, Sephardi Jews have stricter requirements – this level is commonly referred to as Beth Yosef. Meat products that are acceptable to Ashkenazi Jews as kosher may therefore be rejected by Sephardi Jews. Notwithstanding stricter requirements for the actual slaughter, Sephardi Jews permit the rear portions of an animal after proper Halakhic removal of the sciatic nerve, while many Ashkenazi Jews do not. This is not because of different interpretations of the law; rather, slaughterhouses could not find adequate skills for correct removal of the sciatic nerve and found it more economical to separate the hindquarters and sell them as non-kosher meat. Ashkenazi Jews often name newborn children after deceased family members, but not after living relatives. Sephardi Jews, in contrast, often name their children after the children's grandparents, even if those grandparents are still living. A notable exception to this generally reliable rule is among Dutch Jews, where Ashkenazim for centuries used the naming conventions otherwise attributed exclusively to Sephardim such as Chuts. Ashkenazi tefillin bear some differences from Sephardic tefillin. In the traditional Ashkenazic rite, the tefillin are wound towards the body, not away from it. Ashkenazim traditionally don tefillin while standing, whereas other Jews generally do so while sitting down. Ashkenazic traditional pronunciations of Hebrew differ from those of other groups. The most prominent consonantal difference from Sephardic and Mizrahic Hebrew dialects is the pronunciation of the Hebrew letter tav in certain Hebrew words (historically, in postvocalic undoubled context) as an /s/ and not a /t/ or /θ/ sound. Further information: Ashkenazi Hebrew The prayer shawl, or tallit (or tallis in Ashkenazi Hebrew), is worn by the majority of Ashkenazi men after marriage, but western European Ashkenazi men wear it from Bar Mitzvah. In Sephardi or Mizrahi Judaism, the prayer shawl is commonly worn from early childhood.[153] Ashkenazic liturgy This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The term Ashkenazi also refers to the nusach Ashkenaz (Hebrew, "liturgical tradition", or rite) used by Ashkenazi Jews in their Siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition's choice of prayers, the order of prayers, the text of prayers, and melodies used in the singing of prayers. Two other major forms of nusach among Ashkenazic Jews are Nusach Sefard (not to be confused with the Sephardic ritual), which is the general Polish Hasidic nusach, and Nusach Ari, as used by Lubavitch Hasidim. Relations with Sephardim Further information: Racism in Israel § Intra-Jewish racism: Racism between Jews Relations between Ashkenazim and Sephardim have at times been tense and clouded by arrogance, snobbery and claims of racial superiority with both sides claiming the inferiority of the other, based upon such features as physical traits and culture.[154][155][156][157][158] North African Sephardim and Berber Jews were often looked down upon by Ashkenazim as second-class citizens during the first decade after the creation of Israel. This has led to protest movements such as the Israeli Black Panthers led by Saadia Marciano, a Moroccan Jew. Nowadays,[when?] relations are getting warmer.[159] In some instances, Ashkenazi communities have accepted significant numbers of Sephardi newcomers, sometimes resulting in intermarriage and the possible merging between the two communities.[160] Notable Ashkenazim See also: List of Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews have a notable history of achievement in Western societies[161] in the fields of natural and social sciences, mathematics, literature, finance, politics, media, and others. In those societies where they have been free to enter any profession, they have a record of high occupational achievement, entering professions and fields of commerce where higher education is required.[162] Ashkenazi Jews have won a large number of the Nobel awards.[163] The achievements of so many Ashkenazi Jew, have led some to the view that Ashkenazi Jews have higher than average intelligence. However many of these studies which show superior intelligence have been discredited, and other studies note that one should not "confuse racial categories with scientific ones."[164][165][166] Genetics Main article: Genetic studies on Jews Genetic origins Efforts to identify the origins of Ashkenazi Jews through DNA analysis began in the 1990s. Currently, there are three types of genetic origin testing, autosomal DNA (atDNA), mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and Y-chromosomal DNA (Y-DNA). Autosomal DNA is a mixture from an individual's entire ancestry, Y-DNA shows a male's lineage only along his strict paternal line, mtDNA shows any person's lineage only along the strict maternal line. Genome-wide association studies have also been employed to yield findings relevant to genetic origins. Like most DNA studies of human migration patterns, the earliest studies on Ashkenazi Jews focused on the Y-DNA and mtDNA segments of the human genome. Both segments are unaffected by recombination (except for the ends of the Y chromosome – the pseudoautosomal regions known as PAR1 and PAR2), thus allowing tracing of direct maternal and paternal lineages. These studies revealed that Ashkenazi Jews originate from an ancient (2000–700 BCE) population of the Middle East who had spread to Europe.[167] Ashkenazic Jews display the homogeneity of a genetic bottleneck, meaning they descend from a larger population whose numbers were greatly reduced but recovered through a few founding individuals. Although the Jewish people, in general, were present across a wide geographical area as described, genetic research done by Gil Atzmon of the Longevity Genes Project at Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggests "that Ashkenazim branched off from other Jews around the time of the destruction of the First Temple, 2,500 years ago ... flourished during the Roman Empire but then went through a 'severe bottleneck' as they dispersed, reducing a population of several million to just 400 families who left Northern Italy around the year 1000 for Central and eventually Eastern Europe."[168] Various studies have arrived at diverging conclusions regarding both the degree and the sources of the non-Levantine admixture in Ashkenazim,[38] particularly with respect to the extent of the non-Levantine genetic origin observed in Ashkenazi maternal lineages, which is in contrast to the predominant Levantine genetic origin observed in Ashkenazi paternal lineages. All studies nevertheless agree that genetic overlap with the Fertile Crescent exists in both lineages, albeit at differing rates. Collectively, Ashkenazi Jews are less genetically diverse than other Jewish ethnic divisions, due to their genetic bottleneck.[169] Male lineages: Y-chromosomal DNA The majority of genetic findings to date concerning Ashkenazi Jews conclude that the male lines were founded by ancestors from the Middle East.[170][171][172] A study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al.[173] found that the Y-chromosome of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews contained mutations that are also common among other Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the autochthonous European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East. The proportion of male genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to less than 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with "relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim," and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%." This supported the finding that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." "Past research found that 50–80 percent of DNA from the Ashkenazi Y chromosome, which is used to trace the male lineage, originated in the Near East," Richards said. The population has subsequently spread out. A 2001 study by Nebel et al. showed that both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish populations share the same overall paternal Near Eastern ancestries. In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent. The authors also report on Eu 19 (R1a) chromosomes, which are very frequent in Central and Eastern Europeans (54–60%) at elevated frequency (13%) in Ashkenazi Jews. They hypothesized that the differences among Ashkenazim Jews could reflect low-level gene flow from surrounding European populations or genetic drift during isolation.[174] A later 2005 study by Nebel et al., found a similar level of 11.5% of male Ashkenazim belonging to R1a1a (M17+), the dominant Y-chromosome haplogroup in Central and Eastern Europeans.[175] However, a 2017 study, concentrating on the Ashkenazi Levites where the proportion reaches 50%, while signalling that there's a "rich variation of haplogroup R1a outside of Europe which is phylogenetically separate from the typically European R1a branches", precises that the particular R1a-Y2619 sub-clade testifies for a local origin, and that the "Middle Eastern origin of the Ashkenazi Levite lineage based on what was previously a relatively limited number of reported samples, can now be considered firmly validated."[176] Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA Before 2006, geneticists had largely attributed the ethnogenesis of most of the world's Jewish populations, including Ashkenazi Jews, to Israelite Jewish male migrants from the Middle East and "the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism." Thus, in 2002, in line with this model of origin, David Goldstein, now of Duke University, reported that unlike male Ashkenazi lineages, the female lineages in Ashkenazi Jewish communities "did not seem to be Middle Eastern", and that each community had its own genetic pattern and even that "in some cases the mitochondrial DNA was closely related to that of the host community." In his view, this suggested, "that Jewish men had arrived from the Middle East, taken wives from the host population and converted them to Judaism, after which there was no further intermarriage with non-Jews."[151] In 2006, a study by Behar et al.,[39] based on what was at that time high-resolution analysis of haplogroup K (mtDNA), suggested that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women, or "founder lineages", that were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Middle East in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Additionally, Behar et al. suggested that the rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA is originated from ~150 women, and that most of those were also likely of Middle Eastern origin.[39] In reference specifically to Haplogroup K, they suggested that although it is common throughout western Eurasia, "the observed global pattern of distribution renders very unlikely the possibility that the four aforementioned founder lineages entered the Ashkenazi mtDNA pool via gene flow from a European host population". In 2013, a study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by a team led by Martin B. Richards of the University of Huddersfield in England reached different conclusions, in line with the pre-2006 origin hypothesis. Testing was performed on the full 16,600 DNA units composing mitochondrial DNA (the 2006 Behar study had only tested 1,000 units) in all their subjects, and the study found that the four main female Ashkenazi founders had descent lines that were established in Europe 10,000 to 20,000 years in the past[177] while most of the remaining minor founders also have a deep European ancestry. The study argued that the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Near East or the Caucasus, but instead assimilated within Europe, primarily of Italian and Old French origins.[178] The Richards study estimated that more than 80 percent of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to (mainly prehistoric Western) Europe, and only 8 percent from the Near East, while the origin of the remainder is undetermined.[16][177] According to the study these findings "point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities."[16][17][179][180][181] Karl Skorecki criticized the study for perceived flaws in phylogenetic analysis. "While Costa et al. have re-opened the question of the maternal origins of Ashkenazi Jewry, the phylogenetic analysis in the manuscript does not 'settle' the question."[182] A 2014 study by Fernández et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews display a frequency of haplogroup K in their maternal DNA, suggesting an ancient Near Eastern matrilineal origin, similar to the results of the Behar study in 2006. Fernández noted that this observation clearly contradicts the results of the 2013 study led by Richards that suggested a European source for 3 exclusively Ashkenazi K lineages.[40] Association and linkage studies (autosomal DNA) In genetic epidemiology, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS) is an examination of all or most of the genes (the genome) of different individuals of a particular species to see how much the genes vary from individual to individual. These techniques were originally designed for epidemiological uses, to identify genetic associations with observable traits.[183] A 2006 study by Seldin et al. used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure. The results showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the "northern" population group, while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the "southern" group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the "southern" group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".[15] A 2007 study by Bauchet et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations when compared to Global population, and in the European structure analysis, they share similarities only with Greeks and Southern Italians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.[184][185] A 2010 study on Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer et al. stated "Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry", as both groups – the Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews – shared common ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. The study examines genetic markers spread across the entire genome and shows that the Jewish groups (Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi) share large swaths of DNA, indicating close relationships and that each of the Jewish groups in the study (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek and Ashkenazi) has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to their fellow non-Jewish countrymen.[186] Atzmon's team found that the SNP markers in genetic segments of 3 million DNA letters or longer were 10 times more likely to be identical among Jews than non-Jews. Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. The study also found that with respect to non-Jewish European groups, the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that the genetic-similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in the time of the Roman Empire. It was also found that any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants in the study shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins.[187][188] A 2010 study by Bray et al., using SNP microarray techniques and linkage analysis found that when assuming Druze and Palestinian Arab populations to represent the reference to world Jewry ancestor genome, between 35 and 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome can possibly be of European origin, and that European "admixture is considerably higher than previous estimates by studies that used the Y chromosome" with this reference point.[189] Assuming this reference point the linkage disequilibrium in the Ashkenazi Jewish population was interpreted as "matches signs of interbreeding or 'admixture' between Middle Eastern and European populations".[190] On the Bray et al. tree, Ashkenazi Jews were found to be a genetically more divergent population than Russians, Orcadians, French, Basques, Sardinians, Italians and Tuscans. The study also observed that Ashkenazim are more diverse than their Middle Eastern relatives, which was counterintuitive because Ashkenazim are supposed to be a subset, not a superset, of their assumed geographical source population. Bray et al. therefore postulate that these results reflect not the population antiquity but a history of mixing between genetically distinct populations in Europe. However, it is possible that the relaxation of marriage prescription in the ancestors of Ashkenazim drove their heterozygosity up, while the maintenance of the FBD rule in native Middle Easterners has been keeping their heterozygosity values in check. Ashkenazim distinctiveness as found in the Bray et al. study, therefore, may come from their ethnic endogamy (ethnic inbreeding), which allowed them to "mine" their ancestral gene pool in the context of relative reproductive isolation from European neighbors, and not from clan endogamy (clan inbreeding). Consequently, their higher diversity compared to Middle Easterners stems from the latter's marriage practices, not necessarily from the former's admixture with Europeans.[191] The genome-wide genetic study carried out in 2010 by Behar et al. examined the genetic relationships among all major Jewish groups, including Ashkenazim, as well as the genetic relationship between these Jewish groups and non-Jewish ethnic populations. The study found that contemporary Jews (excluding Indian and Ethiopian Jews) have a close genetic relationship with people from the Levant. The authors explained that "the most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant".[192] A study by Behar et al. (2013) found evidence in Ashkenazim of mixed European and Levantine origins. The authors found the greatest affinity and shared ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews to be firstly with other Jewish groups from southern Europe, Syria, and North Africa, and secondly with both southern Europeans (such as Italians) and modern Levantines (such as the Druze, Cypriots, Lebanese and Samaritans). In addition to finding no affinity in Ashkenazim with northern Caucasus populations, the authors found no more affinity in Ashkenazi Jews to modern south Caucasus and eastern Anatolian populations (such as Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, and Turks) than found in non-Ashkenazi Jews or non-Jewish Middle Easterners (such as the Kurds, Iranians, Druze and Lebanese).[193] A 2017 autosomal study by Xue, Shai Carmi et al. found an admixture of Middle-Eastern and European ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews: with the European component comprising ≈50%-70% (estimated at "possibly 60%") and largely being of a Southern European source with a minority being Eastern European, and the remainder (estimated at possibly ≈40%) being Middle Eastern ancestry showing the strongest affinity to Levantine populations such as the Druze and Lebanese.[41] A 2018 study, referencing the popular theory of Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) origins in "an initial settlement in Western Europe (Northern France and Germany), followed by migration to Poland and an expansion there and in the rest of Eastern Europe", tested "whether Ashkenazi Jews with recent origins in Eastern Europe are genetically distinct from Western European Ashkenazi". The study concluded that "Western AJ consist of two slightly distinct groups: one that descends from a subset of the original founders [who remained in Western Europe], and another that migrated there back from Eastern Europe, possibly after absorbing a limited degree of gene flow".[194] In a study published in December 2022, new genome data obtained from the medieval Jewish cemetery of Erfurt was used to further trace the origins of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. These findings suggest that medieval Erfurt had at least two related but genetically distinct Jewish groups: one was closely related to Middle Eastern populations and was especially similar to modern Ashkenazi Jews from France and Germany and modern Sephardic Jews from Turkey; the other group had a substantial contribution from Eastern European populations. Modern Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe no longer exhibit this genetic variability, and instead, their genomes resemble a nearly even mixture of the two Erfurt groups (with about 60% from the first group and 40% from the second).[42] The Khazar hypothesis Main article: Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry In the late 19th century, it was proposed that the core of today's Ashkenazi Jewry are genetically descended from a hypothetical Khazarian Jewish diaspora who had migrated westward from modern Russia and Ukraine into modern France and Germany (as opposed to the currently held theory that Jews migrated from France and Germany into Eastern Europe). The hypothesis is not corroborated by historical sources,[195] and is unsubstantiated by genetics,[193] but it is still occasionally supported by scholars who have had some success in keeping the theory in the academic consciousness.[196][197] The theory has sometimes been used by Jewish authors such as Arthur Koestler as part of an argument against traditional forms of antisemitism (for example the claim that "the Jews killed Christ"), just as similar arguments have been advanced on behalf of the Crimean Karaites. Today, however, the theory is more often associated with antisemitism[198] and anti-Zionism.[199] A 2013 trans-genome study carried out by 30 geneticists, from 13 universities and academies, from nine countries, assembling the largest data set available to date, for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins found no evidence of Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews. The authors concluded: Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region. The authors found no affinity in Ashkenazim with north Caucasus populations, as well as no greater affinity in Ashkenazim to south Caucasus or Anatolian populations than that found in non-Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jewish Middle Easterners (such as the Kurds, Iranians, Druze and Lebanese). The greatest affinity and shared ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews were found to be (after those with other Jewish groups from southern Europe, Syria, and North Africa) with both southern Europeans and Levantines such as Druze, Cypriot, Lebanese and Samaritan groups.[193] Medical genetics Main article: Medical genetics of Jews There are many references to Ashkenazi Jews in the literature of medical and population genetics. Indeed, much awareness of "Ashkenazi Jews" as an ethnic group or category stems from the large number of genetic studies of disease, including many that are well reported in the media, that have been conducted among Jews. Jewish populations have been studied more thoroughly than most other human populations, for a variety of reasons: Jewish populations, and particularly the large Ashkenazi Jewish population, are ideal for such research studies, because they exhibit a high degree of endogamy, yet they are sizable.[200] Jewish communities are comparatively well informed about genetics research, and have been supportive of community efforts to study and prevent genetic diseases.[200] The result is a form of ascertainment bias. This has sometimes created an impression that Jews are more susceptible to genetic disease than other populations.[200] Healthcare professionals are often taught to consider those of Ashkenazi descent to be at increased risk for colon cancer.[201] People of Ashkenazi descent are at much higher risk of being a carrier for Tay-Sachs disease, which is fatal in its homozygous form.[202] Genetic counseling and genetic testing are often undertaken by couples where both partners are of Ashkenazi ancestry. Some organizations, most notably Dor Yeshorim, organize screening programs to prevent homozygosity for the genes that cause related diseases.[203][204]
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