Diaspora Worlds: Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews

After the Roman era, most Jews lived in the diaspora, scattered communities across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Two major cultural branches emerged. Sephardic Jews developed in Spain and Portugal, where under Muslim rule in the 10th–12th centuries Jewish poetry, philosophy and science flourished; the philosopher and legal scholar Maimonides (1138–1204), born in Córdoba, later served as a physician in Cairo.

Ashkenazi Jews developed in the Rhineland and later Central and Eastern Europe, speaking Yiddish, a Germanic language with Hebrew elements. Mizrahi Jews lived continuously in Iraq, Iran, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East. Each community developed its own customs, music and prayer styles while sharing Torah, Talmud and core practice. Diaspora life depended on rulers' tolerance, which varied greatly: periods of prosperity alternated with restrictions and expulsions.

This pattern explains both the remarkable diversity of Jewish culture and its vulnerability.