Message #117163

[Bianca]

For religious purposes, the term Sephardim means all Jews who use a Sephardic style of liturgy, and therefore includes most Jews of Arabic and Persian background, whether or not they have any historical or ethnographic connection to the Iberian peninsula.

Most of these communities (with some exceptions such as the Yemenites) do in fact use much the same religious ritual as the Sephardim proper and, like them, base their religious law on the Shulchan Aruch without the glosses of Moses Isserles. When used in this sense, "Sephardim" should be translated not as "Spanish Jews" but as "Jews of the Spanish rite". (In the same way, Ashkenazim means "Jews of the German rite", whether or not their families actually originate in Germany.)

Accordingly, in the vernacular of modern-day Jews in Israel and worldwide, especially many Ashkenazi Jews, "Sephardi" has come to be used as an umbrella term for any Jewish person who is not Ashkenazi.

This nomenclature is often perceived as unsatisfactory, and a variety of other terms have been coined. For example, Jews of Arabic-speaking backgrounds are sometimes referred to as Musta'arabim or "Arab Jews", though for political reasons this last description is disputed.

A term in common use for all Jewish communities historically associated with Africa and Asia and not of Spanish descent is Mizrahim, which in Hebrew means "Orientals". In current use, Mizrahi Jews is a convenient way to refer collectively to a wide range of Jewish communities, most of which are as unrelated to each other as they are to either the Sephardi (in the narrower sense) or Ashkenazi communities. They include in particular the communities living in, or coming from, Southern Arabia (Yemen), North Africa, Mesopotamia (Iraq), Syria, Persia (Iran) and India.

The distinction between Sephardim and Mizrahim is not watertight as many communities (e.g. Syrian
and Moroccan Jews) are ethnically speaking a mixture between native Arab Jews and later arrivals from Spain and Portugal.

Moroccans in particular sometimes object to being called "Mizrahim", given that it makes no geographical sense to describe Morocco as "eastern". In Arabic the equivalent term (Mashriqiyyun) specifically denotes the inhabitants of the Near East as opposed to those of North Africa (Maghrabiyyun).

 Conversely Turkish Jews, who are mostly of Spanish descent and therefore ethnic Sephardim, are geographically "easterners" and could logically be called "Mizrahim".