Learn about Mizrahi Jews here.

The history of the Jews of Spain reaches back to Biblical times and Spanish Jews were one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the world. Spanish Jews gave the name “Sepharad” to the Iberian peninsula and referred to themselves as Sephardi Jews. The word “Sepharad” comes from the Book of Obadiah in the Hebrew Bible.

Even though there was anti-Jewish sentiment following the Moorish Conquest in 711, Sephardic Jews flourished with Jews taking roles in government and earning prestige in non-Jewish circles as poets, scholars, scientists and physicians alongside their Muslim neighbors.

Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language, unified Jews throughout the Iberian Peninsula in daily life, ritual, and song. Ladino, a blend of Spanish with words from Hebrew, Arabic, and Portuguese, had a formal dialect, as well as a spoken dialect which evolved during the immigrations of Sephardic Jews to new lands.

The Sephardic Golden Age ended when Christian princes consolidated their kingdoms and reestablished Christian rule throughout Spain and Portugal.  

In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled all Jews from Spain. Jews immigrated to Turkey, Rhodes, Greece, some of the Slavic states, most of North Africa, Holland, Italy and the Middle East, with others going to India, China and Japan.

As Sephardic Jews set up new communities around the world, they brought with them their unique ritual customs, language, arts, and architecture. The first Sephardic Jews arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-1800s.

Sephardic Jews played key roles in the birth of L.A.’s organized Jewish community. In 1854, 24-year-old Samuel K. Labatt became the founding president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles (today’s Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles), the city’s first all-purpose Jewish organization and the first charitable organization of any kind.

Samuel, born in North Carolina to a Sephardic family actively involved in Jewish life, arrived here with his brother Joseph in 1853. They became the and only Sephardic Jews in town, opening La Tienda de China, a high-end store that carried “Fancy Dry Goods.”

Mordecai Zeitoun, a native of Algeria, is believed to be the first Sephardic Jew to arrive in Los Angeles in the 20th century. He arrived here in 1904 with his daughter, Rose. Soon, other young Sephardi immigrants came to seek their fortunes in Los Angeles and founded the first Sephardic congregation, the Avat Shalom Society, in 1912, embracing Jews from all the countries of the Sephardic Diaspora.

Today Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel in Westwood which represents the coming together of many of these early diaspora Sephardic Jewish groups celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Reference Source: My Jewish Learning, Stephen Sass

Photo credit

Top right to left: Israel’s first Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel; Ketuv Ketubah; Paul Smith/For the Washington Post), Shavei Israel.