Diaspora as Nation

Abstract

Abstract This chapter traces the evolution of the so-called “Eastern” Sephardic diaspora in its Mediterranean context from 1492 to the late twentieth century. It looks at the way in which these exiles and their descendants forged a new diasporic identity characterized by sprawling mercantile networks that linked Jews and Conversos, new forms of Judeo-Spanish, and a nostalgia for medieval Spain. At first, the mutual sense of estrangement between the refugees and the native Jews among whom they came to settle reinforced communal solidarity among the Sephardim. From the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Mediterranean Sephardim adopted aspects of Ottoman, North African, and Italian culture, but succeeded in maintaining a distinct communal character amid a shifting set of political contexts and associations. During the twentieth century, the mass migration of Mediterranean Sephardim to the State of Israel helped recast them as “Eastern” Jews, or Mizrahim.

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