וגלות ספרד אשר בירושלים: An American Sephardi in Israel
Eventually, an American Sephardi in Israel discovers that she is an Ashkenazi. There are no longer Sephardim in Israel. Instead, the two groups are Ashkenazim and Mizrahim. From a strictly demographic perspective, such as the country of birth of one's grandparents, Sephardim and Mizrahim are the same people, but in day to day they have nothing to do with each other, except perhaps what siddur one uses. Sephardim are the proud bearers of the great Andalusian tradition, embodied by Maimonides and cultured and seeded thereafter throughout the Ottoman empire. Mizrahim on the other hand are a socioeconomic group whose primary defining factor is a history of being oppressed and discriminated in Israel on the basis of their country of origin and/ or complexion. If you try to doing them as an American Sephardi in search of your great tradition, you won't find much of it left. The accent is gone, the piyutim are for old folks, the music, except for perhaps a little prelude with an