Editing Sephardic Jews (section)

=== North African Sephardim ===
[[File:Moroccan_wedding_dress,_19-20th_century_(3551817349).jpg|thumb|19th-century [[Berberisca dress|Moroccan Sephardic wedding dress]]]]
{{main|North African Sephardim}}North African Sephardim consists of the descendants of the expellees from Spain who also left as Jews in 1492. This branch settled in [[North Africa]] (except Egypt, see Eastern Sephardim above). Settling mostly in [[Moroccan Jews|Morocco]] and [[History of the Jews in Algeria|Algeria]], they spoke a variant of [[Judaeo-Spanish]] known as [[Haketia]]. They also spoke [[Judeo-Arabic]] in a majority of cases. They settled in the areas with already established Arabic-speaking Jewish communities in North Africa and eventually merged with them to form new communities based solely on Sephardic customs.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

Several of the [[Moroccan Jews]] emigrated back to the Iberian Peninsula to form the core of the [[History of the Jews in Gibraltar|Gibraltar Jews]].{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

In the 19th century, modern Spanish, French and Italian gradually replaced Haketia and Judeo-Arabic as the mother tongue among most Moroccan Sephardim and other North African Sephardim.<ref>Samuel Toledano, ''Espagne: les retrouvailles'', in: ''Les Juifs du Maroc'' (Editions du Scribe, Paris 1992)</ref>

In recent times, with the [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries]], principally after the creation of Israel in 1948, most North African Sephardim have relocated to Israel (total pop. est. 1,400,000 in 2015), and most others to France (361,000)<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
   |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/09/magazine/the-jews-of-france.html |title=The Jews of France
   |author=Paul Lewis |date=9 October 1983 |access-date=29 August 2022}}</ref> and the US (300,000), as well as other countries. As of 2015 there was a significant community still in Morocco (10,000).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://qz.com/427032/mapped-where-sephardic-jews-live-after-they-were-kicked-out-of-spain-500-years-ago/|title=Mapped: Where Sephardic Jews live after they were kicked out of Spain 500 years ago|date=16 June 2015|first=Maria|last=Sanchez Diez|website=Quartz|access-date=7 October 2019|archive-date=15 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415233849/https://qz.com/427032/mapped-where-sephardic-jews-live-after-they-were-kicked-out-of-spain-500-years-ago/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2021, among Arab countries, the largest Jewish community now exists in [[Morocco]] with about 2,000 Jews and in Tunisia with about 1,000.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-population-5782/|title=Jewish Population Rises to 15.2 million Worldwide|date =15 September 2021|publisher=Jewish agency}}</ref>

North African Sephardim still also often carry common Spanish surnames, as well as other specifically Sephardic surnames from 15th century Spain with Arabic or Hebrew language origins (such as [[Azoulay]], [[Abulafia (surname)|Abulafia]], [[Abravanel]]) which have since disappeared from Spain when those that stayed behind as conversos adopted surnames that were solely Spanish in origin. Other North African Sephardim have since also translated their Hispanic surnames into local languages or have modified them to sound local.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}