Answer:
Jewish people with Ashkenazi heritage are descendants of Jewish settlers that inhabited the Western Germany and Northern France area in the Middle Ages. Many of those settlers eventually migrated to Eastern Europe. For that reason, Ashkenazi Jews are often described as having “Eastern European” descent, as opposed to Iberian descent (Sephardi Jews) or Middle Eastern descent (Mizrahi Jews). Ashkenazi Jews make up an estimated 75-80% of the world’s Jewish population and they inhabit all corners of the world, with the largest population, 5-6 million, living in the United States(2).
