Sephardic \Se*phar"dic\, a. [From Sephardim, a name applied to the Spanish Jews, fr. Sephard, name of a place where Jews were held in captivity (--Ob. 20).] Of, pertaining to, or designating, the Jews (the Sephardim, also called Spanish or Portuguese Jews) descended from Jewish families driven from Spain by the Inquisition. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
The Sephardic communities have maintained many of the customs, traditions and the old Castillian language, known as Ladino, of their ancestors.
'We're from both worlds, Sephardic and Ashkenazic.
But her guiding inspiration was an ancient Sephardic Jewish song, 'El Rey de Francia'; in fact The King is a set of 10 variations on it.
Only on Friday did Mrs. Trabelsi consent to the amputation after a visit from Mordechai Eliahu, chief rabbi of Israel's Sephardic Jews, those of Middle East and African origin.
Labor leaders viewed their best chance as an alliance with the ultra-Orthodox Shas, or "Sephardic Torah Guardians," which holds five seats in Parliament.
Labor officials noted that Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz of the Shas, a party oriented to Sephardic Jews of Middle East origin, left the door open to a possible alliance with Labor.
He studied biochemistry, became a high school teacher and then was shocked to see that most of his Sephardic students were poorly educated and generally neglected by the government.
It was then that thousands of Sephardic Jews chose conversion to Catholicism as an alternative to expulsion, torture or death at the hands of the Inquisition.
Science Minister Yuval Neeman and Absorption Minister Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz came to the funeral, along with Israel's chief Sephardic rabbi, Mordechai Eliahu.
Eliahu is chief rabbi to Israel's Sephardic community, Jews of North African and Middle Eastern origin.
A recent meeting of more than 500 of them in Seattle, called "Emergence: American Sephardic Jewry Today," was seen as a kind of American coming-out affair for them.
Then a few months ago, another Sephardic spiritual leader, "Baba" Baruch Abuhatzeira, went further and advocated talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Israel views as a terrorist organization.
On a recent walking tour of the open-air market of Ramle, 12 miles east of Tel Aviv, scores of young Sephardic Jews jostled and booed Peres, taunting him with chants of "go home," "traitor" and "PLO."