According to Ilana Kaufman, executive director of the Jews of Color Initiative, the "dominance of Ashkenazi heritage (associated with Central and Eastern Europe) in American Judaism can make Jews who don't share that background feel out of place in synagogues and other Jewish settings.
According to linguist Sarah Bunin Benor, Jews discuss the term to counter the power imbalance from a time when Jewish life was Ashkenormative.
[5][9] Norman Stillman, an academic in Oriental studies, wrote about the "Ashkenazification" of Sephardi religious life in Israel.
Lihi Yona, writing for +972 Magazine, said that the Ashkenazi-dominated kibbutz movement "contributed to the vast socio-economic gaps that characterize Israel today" because "Ashkenazim enjoy near-unadulterated privilege and access to land and natural resources, which in turn yield significant economic opportunities.
Meanwhile, Mizrahi “development towns” that sprang up around them house tens of thousands of people in small, cramped geographic areas that offer little opportunities for economic advancement.
[16] Rokhl Kaffrissen has argued that the term is a misnomer when Ashkenazi culture is widely denigrated within an American Jewish society which has embraced Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation and other elements of Sephardi culture as a result of alleged self-hatred among 19th century German Jews and 20th century Zionists.