For many centuries, the term “Sephardi” has been applied to Jews whose ancestors fled Spain or Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries, or to Jews from North Africa and the Middle East more generally. Tamar Marvin explains the origins of both the term and the community it denotes. The story begins with the biblical book of Obadiah, which refers to exiles from Jerusalem who settled in Sepharad—probably Sardis in what is now western Turkey. But Targum Jonathan, an Aramaic translation from the 1st- or 2nd-century long considered authoritative by Jews, renders the word as Espamia, i.e., Spain:

[Modern] Spain may have received colonists from Sardis, making the link an actual one, as some scholars have suggested. By the early Middle Ages, “Sepharad” was the common appellation among Jews for what we today call Spain. The verse from Obadiah served as a prooftext attesting to the nobility and antiquity of the Sephardi Jewish community, a central component of its self-understanding.

Centuries later, on the cusp of modernity when questions of lineage became supercharged in Spanish society, Sephardi Jews claimed to unearth, in the old Jewish cemetery of Morvedre (Murviedro, now Sagunto), the tombstone of Adoniram, the treasurer of King Solomon. Despite this dubious claim, Sephardi Jewry’s collective sense of its own antiquity is borne out by the probably small, but not insignificant, presence of Jews Iberia in late antiquity, possibly even earlier. Archaeological remains, chiefly grave markers in Latin and Hebrew, attest to Jewish presence in Roman Hispania.

While the Jewish population of medieval Spain had diverse origins, not all from this ancient community, the reality of the long-established history of Jews in Sepharad had a profound effect on the community and was one of many factors that made the eventual expulsion of Jews from all the Iberian kingdoms in 1492–97 so traumatic.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.