Sepharad
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Sepharad

Sepharad (/ˈsɛfəræd/ SEF-ər-ad or /səˈfɛərəd/ sə-FAIR-əd; Hebrew: סְפָרַד, romanizedSəp̄āraḏ, Israeli pronunciation: [sfaˈʁad]; also Sfard, Spharad, Sefarad, or Sephared) is the Hebrew-language name for the Iberian Peninsula, referring to the regions of present-day Spain and Portugal. By the 9th century, the term had come to denote this geographic area in Jewish usage. The designation Sephardic Jews refers to Jews whose ancestors lived in the Iberian Peninsula and were forcibly expelled beginning in 1492. In modern Hebrew, Sepharad primarily refers to Spain.

The term Sepharad appears in the Biblical Book of Obadiah as the name of some now-unidentified location that was a destination of Jews exiled from Jerusalem. The Targum Jonathan is the earliest known source of the interpretation of the name as referring to Spain; it translates Sepharad into Aramaic as Ispamia.

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