The descendants of the Jews who, since the Late Middle Ages, had emigrated or been expelled from the Iberian peninsula (Hebr. Sepharad) are called Sephardim. The Sephardim developed a distinct tradition known as Sephardic, characterized by halakhic, liturgical, and linguistic-cultural peculiarities. The cultural differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in the Diaspora also continued in Ottoman Palestine and in the State of Israel.

Jewish refugees and emigrants, who had left their Iberian homeland at the time of the incipient Reconquista because of o…