Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews, also known as Sephardic Jews, Hispanic Jews or Sephardim (from Sepharad, a name used by Spanish and Portuguese Jews for the Iberian Peninsula) are a group of Jews who originally resided in Spain and Portugal, developing distinctive characteristics, possibly due to inbreeding, and later becoming widely dispersed, notably in association with Jewish expulsions from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1496.
More broadly, the term Sephardim has today also come sometimes to refer to traditionally Eastern Jewish communities of West Asia and beyond who, although not having genealogical roots in the Jewish communities of Iberia, have adopted a Sephardic style of liturgy and Sephardic law and customs imparted to them by the Iberian Jewish over the course of the last few centuries. See also Mizrahi Jews.
