R Haim Ovadia - Sephardic Heritage 1

[@DavidRojasElbirt]

On my mother's side: My zeide from Poland. My bobe was born in Argentina, while older siblings and parents in Russia. On my father's side: Criollos from Bolivia with last names from Spain and Italy, with facial bits of mataco indigenous people (dark skin, broad bone structure, hairless body). Me: hairy since birth; just used the "I'm Jewish" card to woosh away door-to-door evangelists of any creed and to skip religion classes and activities at school; learnt Yiddish expressions and even compiled a small dictionary as a way to connect with my bobe. I was 33 the first time I went into any synagogue, just after doing my brith. A culture shock for me. A Sephardic argentinian Greek-Syrian migrants who built an all-are-invited musical hugging kissing joking dancing smiling synagogue. My rav is Ashkenazi turned Sephardi by choice. Me too. I live in Bolivia. Your shiurim have been really helpful to solve practical and ashkafah related issues. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and down to earth Torah-and-hacham community-building based criteria. Gracias.

[@jewsinthevillage4553]

Thank you Rabbi

[@TVA613]

Always welcome

[@Gotlev6]

Sefardim are/were the descendants of the Jews who lived in Spain and Portugal from at least the later centuries of the Roman Empire until their persecution and mass expulsion from those countries in the last decades of the 15th century.

[@greggoryhorn]

That is taking a narrow view of “Sephardic;” there is also a larger, non-ethnic view which focuses on the socio-religious tradition shared by the Jews of dar al Islam (excepting the Temanim)

[@whidoineedthis]

The off to the Americas, the rest is history

[@TVA613]

There is an ethnic definition and there is a theological/cultural definition. I am talking about the latter, and that one includes almost all the Jews of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula.

[@batminton7467]

Sephardim has a narrow and a broad meaning: the narrow one is alle the Hispanic jews that lived in what is now called Spain, Portugal, the Rif and Southern France. The broad definition is ALL mediterranean jews that lived around the mediterranean sea (the black sea included which is also mediterranean) including the middle-east but excluding eastern/persian jews and north-african jews a.k.a. mizrahi. The broader meaning corresponds the best with the definition of "children of Yakov" from the tanakh/bible. The reason why Hispanic jews became the main association with the word Sephardim is because they were the most successful writers of the medieval period. The most important modern books of jewry come from them and not from jews from the middle-east. So, every modern (jewish) philosophical idea was coined by Hispanic jews. All the other forms of jewry are a "foreign" implementation or localization of Sephardic (Hispanic) customs, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but should definitely be mentioned.