Eastern Sephardim

Eastern Sephardim are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardi Jews, mostly descended from families expelled and exiled from Iberia as Jews in the 15th century following the Alhambra Decree of 1492 in Spain and the decree of 1497 in Portugal. This branch of descendants of the Jews of Iberia settled in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Eastern Sephardim settled mostly in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, which included areas in West Asia (Middle East, Anatolia, etc.), the Balkans in Southern Europe, plus Egypt. They settled particularly in Salonica (in what is today Greece), Constantinople (today known as Istanbul, in Turkey), and Sarajevo (in what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina), all of which were in the European area of the Ottoman Empire.

Their traditional spoken language is referred to as Judaeo-Spanish. Some went further east to territories of the Ottoman Empire, settling among the long-established Arabic-speaking Jewish communities in Baghdad in Iraq, Damascus in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt.

For the most part, Eastern Sephardim did not maintain their own separate Sephardic religious and cultural institutions from the pre-existing Jews, but instead the local Jews came to adopt the culture and customs of the recent Sephardic arrivals. This phenomenon is just one of the factors which has today led to the broader religious definition of Sephardi.

A few of the Eastern Sephardim followed the spice trade routes as far as the Malabar coast of southern India, where they settled among the established Cochin Jewish community, again imparting their culture and customs to the local Jews.

In recent times, principally after 1948, most Eastern Sephardim have since relocated to Israel, and others to the USA and Latin America.

Relation to other Sephardi communities

The term Sephardi means "Spanish" or "Hispanic", and is derived from Sepharad, a Biblical location. The location of the biblical Sepharad is disputed, but Sepharad was identified by later Jews as Hispania, that is, the Iberian Peninsula. Sepharad still means "Spain" in modern Hebrew.

The relationship between Sephardi-descended communities is illustrated in the following diagram:

Language

Historically, the vernacular language of Eastern Sephardim was Judeo-Spanish, a Romance language also called Ladino (specifically "Ladino Oriental" or Eastern Ladino) and Judezmo ("Jewish [language]"). The language is derived from Old Spanish, plus Hebrew and Aramaic. The language was taken by Eastern Sephardim in the 15th century after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, where it was heavily influenced by Maghrebi Arabic.

By contrast, the languages spoken by related Sephardi communities and descendants include:

• Haketia, also called "Ladino Occidental" (Western Ladino), a Judaeo-Spanish variety also derived from Old Spanish, plus Hebrew and Aramaic. Spoken by North African Sephardim. Taken with North African Sephardim in the 15th century after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, this dialect was heavily influenced by Maghrebi Arabic.
• Early Modern Spanish and Early Modern Portuguese, including in a mixture of the two. Traditionally spoken or used liturgically by the ex-converso Western Sephardim. Taken with them during their later migration out of Iberia in the 16th to 18th centuries as conversos, after which they reverted to Judaism.
• Modern Spanish and Modern Portuguese varieties, traditionally spoken by the Sephardic Bnei Anusim of Iberia and Ibero-America, including some recent returnees to Judaism (Neo-Western Sephardim) in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In most cases these varieties have incorporated loanwords from the indigenous languages of the Americas introduced following the Spanish conquest.

Surnames

Eastern Sephardim still often carry common Spanish surnames, as well as other specifically Sephardic surnames from 15th century Spain with Arabic or Hebrew language origins (such as Azoulay, Abulafia, Abravanel) which have since disappeared from Spain when those that stayed behind as conversos adopted surnames that were solely Spanish in origin. Other Eastern Sephardim have since also translated their Hispanic surnames into the languages of the regions they settled in, or have modified them to sound more local.

See also

• North African Sephardim
• Sephardic Anusim
• Western Sephardim
• Sephardic Bnei Anusim
• Neo-Western Sephardim