The Road from Babylon: The Story of Sephardi and Oriental Jews

Because most of the Jews in the USA today are Ashkenazim (descended from the Jews of Eastern Europe), I knew very little about the Sephardic Jews until I read this book many years ago. Since then, I have learned that the FIRST Jews to arrive in the Americas were Sephardic, many of them fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. "The Road from Babylon" traces the history of the Sephardim from the Babylonian Captivity (hence the title) to the present day (or at least to 1985, when this book was published.) According to the text, "Sephardic" orignally referred to the Jews who fled Spain in 1492, but is now applied to "Jews whose ancestors lived in the Balkans, Asia Minor, North Africa, and all round the Mediterranean in the Near and Middle East." (P.1) We should also note that the majority of Jews in Israel today are Sephardim, descended from Jews who fled persecution in the Arab countries after Israel was founded in 1948. (121,000 left Iraq in 1951 -- see p. 231.) In terms of format, the book is well-written and researched, and includes two sections of B & W photos, showing Sephardic communities, synagogues, and traditional dress down through the centuries.