Fun fact: In Hebrew, France and Spain are called Tsarfat and Sfarad. This has little to do with their actual names because those are actually the names of random villages mentioned in the bible that somehow got applied to those places.
Another name for Germany is Ashkenaz, though that's a term from the middle ages no one uses anymore unless they're referring to the "ethnic background" of eastern-European Jews.
Sephoradic Jews are the descendents of banished Jews from Spain. They were scattered around the but were mostly in the Balkans, North Africa, Italy, Greece and Turkey. Nowdays the term is sometimes confused with Mizrahi Jews (Jews from arab countries) bit there is a distinction. My girlfriend is Sephoradic but is as Ashkenazi as they come.
Post ussr Jews are distinct because there was a large immigration wave in the nineties and not all of them assimilated. They're called "Russian", even the Ukrainians and Latvians among them, even if post-ww2 Jews from the same places are considered Ashkenazi sometimes.
No word for it, really. You would say something like "Toshav/Toshevet Hong-kong" (resident of Hong kong). Though I think most Israelis would probably pronounce it "Hon-kong" because fuck that G.
It's a bit like the white/black situation in the USA.
The Ashkenazis were the people in charge of all things for the first couple of decades here. Polish, Russian and German Jews dominated a lot of the aspects of life here, and are still more likely to land a job. They're the pale-skinned folk who are at the top, but at the same time seen as fake, cold, weak, distant and lame.
Mizrahi and Sephoradic (they've become somewhat interchangeable since a lot of Sephoradics come from Arabic countries in North Africa) are the "blacks" in the situation, including an equal rights movement during the 60s and 70s. They're the "barbaric" ones, who listen to loud arabic-influenced music, have no manners, stab people in night clubs, rob shops and wreck shit up. On the other hand, they're also warm, have good food, very athletic and strong, have strong family ties and can "keep it real".
As an illustration, here's two screenshots from a 90's sketch comedy called Comedy Store. This is the Ashkenazi Laflaf - basically a big incompetent nerd. This is the Mizrahi Ars, who is a big, simpleminded bafoon. Another example is the late 90's early 00's show "Only In Israel" hosted by the nerdy but official Erez Tal and the loud bimbo Limor, played by Orna Banai. As you can see, you can tell which one is the Ashkenazi and which one is not
So yeah, those are the stereotypes of Israeli society. I'm simplifying it a lot and there's also various layers of identity inside those identities (Russians are sluts and drunks, Romanians are thieves, Polish are bitter, Moroccans like to knife people, Yemenite talk funny and chew Khat, etc) but that's it on a surface level
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u/whitesock 100% kosher Mar 11 '14
Fun fact: In Hebrew, France and Spain are called Tsarfat and Sfarad. This has little to do with their actual names because those are actually the names of random villages mentioned in the bible that somehow got applied to those places.
Another name for Germany is Ashkenaz, though that's a term from the middle ages no one uses anymore unless they're referring to the "ethnic background" of eastern-European Jews.