Sephardim ספרדים
The Jews of Spain and their dispersion after 1492—from Fez and Salonika to Amsterdam and Safed.
"Sepharad" is a name from the prophet Obadiah, fixed to Spain. The Golden Age gave Spain Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Yehuda Halevi, Maimonides—and the fame of the world's first community. The expulsion of 1492 scattered the Sephardim around the Mediterranean: Morocco, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, later Amsterdam; they carried their language Ladino, their rite and their learning—the Shulchan Aruch was written by the Sephardi Yosef Karo at Safed.
In the broader sense "Sephardim" names all communities of the eastern rite, from Morocco to Iran and Yemen, praying in an order close to the Spanish. The Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel bears the title "Rishon leZion"—"first in Zion".
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Obadiah 1:20 — «the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad»
Rishonim
- Rashi on Ovadya 1:20 — “Sepharad — Jonathan rendered it: Aspamia”
Basis: Talmud and midrash.