Sephardim
[suh-fahr-dim, -fahr-deem]
- Jews of Spain and Portugal or their descendants, distinguished from the Ashkenazim and other Jewish communities chiefly by their liturgy, religious customs, and pronunciation of Hebrew: after expulsion from Spain and Portugal in 1492, established communities in North Africa, the Balkans, Western Europe, and elsewhere.
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Origin of Sephardim
1850–55; < Modern Hebrew Səphāraddīm, plural of Səphāraddī, equivalent to < Hebrew Səphāradh (region mentioned in Bible (Obadiah 20) and assumed to be Spain) + -ī suffix of appurtenance
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for sephardic
Contemporary Examples
Jews of Sephardic origin were protected by a law of 1924 that granted them Spanish citizenship.
Yosef was a leader in religious outreach, and brought thousands of Sephardic Jews back into the religious fold.
To millions of Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews around the world, he was a hero.
Her words were warmly received by the Speaker of the Knesset, a politician from Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party.
The decisive faction here might be the Shas party, which represents the large Sephardic population.
Historical Examples
A Sephardic Jew lived and moved and had his being "by permission of the Mahamad."
The King of SchnorrersIsrael Zangwill
His daughter was to be married under the Sephardic canopy, and no jot of synagogual honour was to be bated the bridegroom.
The King of SchnorrersIsrael Zangwill
But the very enormity of the misery they endured387 raised the dignity of the Sephardic Jews to a height bordering on pride.
History of the Jews, Vol. IV (of VI)Heinrich Graetz
These Jews, true to their religious instincts, built synagogues wherever they settled and were called Sephardic Congregations.
On the Trail of The ImmigrantEdward A. Steiner
The Sephardic Jews in all these respects occupied a superior position, and they merited the partiality shown to them.
Word Origin and History for sephardic
Sephardim
plural of Sephardi "a Spanish or Portuguese Jew" (1851), from Modern Hebrew Sepharaddim "Spaniards, Jews of Spain," from Sepharad, name of a country mentioned only in Obad. v:20, probably meaning "Asia Minor" or a part of it (Lydia, Phrygia), but identified by the rabbis after the Jonathan Targum as "Spain." Related: Sephardic.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper