SEPHARDI

also spelled Sefardi (from Hebrew Sefarad, Spain), plural Sephardim, or Sefardim, a member of the Jews, or their descendants, who lived in Spain and Portugal from the Middle Ages until their persecution and mass expulsion from those countries in the last decades of the 15th century. The Sephardim initially fled to North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, and many of these eventually settled in such countries as France, Holland, England, Italy, and the Balkans. Salonika (Thessalonki) in Macedonia and the city of Amsterdam became major sites of Sephardic settlement. The transplanted Sephardim largely retained their native Judeo-Spanish language (Ladino), literature, and customs. They became noted for their cultural and intellectual achievements within the Mediterranean and northern European Jewish communities. The Sephardim differ notably from Ashkenazi (German-rite) Jews in preserving Babylonian rather than Palestinian Jewish ritual traditions. Of the estimated 700,000 Sephardic Jews in the world today (far fewer than the Ashkenazim), many now reside in the state of Israel. The chief rabbinate of Israel has both a Sephardic and an Ashkenazi chief rabbi. Though the term Oriental Jews is perhaps more properly applied to Jews of North Africa and the Middle East who had no ties with either Spain or Germany and who speak Arabic, Persian, or a variant of ancient Aramaic, the designation Sephardim frequently signifies all North African Jews and others who, under the influence of the Spanish Jews, have adopted the Sephardic rite.