Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi Jews (Hebrew: יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) in plural and Mizrahi (מִזְרָחִי) in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach (עֵדוֹת־הַמִּזְרָח, lit. 'Communities of the East'), are a grouping of Jewish communities that lived in the Muslim world. Mizrahi is a politico-sociological term that was coined with the creation of the State of Israel. It translates as "Easterner" in Hebrew.

The term Mizrahi is exclusively applied to descendants of Jewish communities throughout Asia, North Africa, and parts of the North Caucasus. This includes Iraqi Jews, Iranian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Afghan Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, and the small community of Bahraini Jews. The aforementioned groups are believed to derive their ancestry from the Babylonian captivity. Yemenite Jews are also Mizrahi Jews, although they differ from other Mizrahim, who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to Sephardic law and customs.

Syrian Jews, Egyptian Jews, Tunisian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Algerian Jews, and Libyan Jews (also known as Musta'arabi Jews or Maghrebi Jews) are sometimes labeled as Oriental Jews or Mizrahim, although these groups largely merged with the mass arrival of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian peninsula, following their late 15th-century expulsion from Spain and Portugal. The vast majority of Maghrebi Jews (Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian) are Sephardim of point of view of the religious rite. Maghrebi is an Arabic term which translates to "Westerners."

Indian Jews (specifically Cochin Jews and Bene Israel) are sometimes labeled as Mizrahi, although members of the community identify as a separate category, as South Asian.