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Mizrahi Jews or Oriental Jews (מזרחי "eastern", Standard Hebrew Mizraḥi, Tiberian Hebrew Mizrāḥî; plural מזרחים "easterners", Standard Hebrew Mizraḥim, Tiberian Hebrew Mizrāḥîm) are Jews of Middle Eastern origin; that is to say, their ancestors never left the Middle East. In Israel, they are colloquially called Sephardic Jews, though technically the Mizrahim are not Sephardic, since they never lived in Sepharad (Spain and Portugal) nor are they descended of those who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Inquisition.
Arab Jews, a phrase that is rarely used today, was once also the common designation for the Mizrahim. The most prominent language associated with the Mizrahim are the various Judæo-Arabic dialects, though other languages may also be associated with them, as in the case of Judeo-Persian for the Mizrahim original to Iran. See also Mizrahi Hebrew language.
In reaction to the events leading up to and following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, citizens of Arab countries acted violently against their local Jewish populations in what they viewed as retaliation for both the inflammatory creation of the Jewish state of Israel, and for their brethren being turned into refugees as a result. Further anti-Jewish actions by Arab governments in the 1950s and 1960s, incuding the expulsion of 25,000 Mizrahi Jews from Egypt following the 1956 Suez Crisis, led to the overwhelming majority of Mizrahim becoming refugees. Most of these refugees fled to Israel.
Today, of the few remaining Mizrahi communities still residing in Arab countries, with a combined population of fewer than 1,000 individuals, a trickle of emigration to Israel continues and is encouraged by the Jewish state.
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