Sources: Ibn Ezra, biblical commentaries; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah and Guide for the Perplexed; Judah Halevi, Kuzari; the Zohar; the Shulchan Aruch (Joseph Karo, Sephardic Jew).

Sephardic Judaism (from Sepharad — Spain in Hebrew) is the cultural and religious tradition of Jews whose ancestors lived in the Iberian Peninsula before the expulsion of 1492. Sephardic culture was shaped by centuries of the convivencia — the complex coexistence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in medieval Iberia that produced extraordinary intellectual cross-pollination. Sephardic achievements: (1) The Golden Age of Hebrew literature (~900–1200 AD) — Judah Halevi, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra writing poetry that synthesized Hebrew biblical language with Arabic literary forms; (2) Maimonides (Rambam, ~1135–1204 AD) — philosopher, physician, and the greatest medieval Jewish legal authority, whose Mishneh Torah and Guide for the Perplexed synthesize Torah law with Aristotelian philosophy; (3) The Zohar (~1280 AD, attributed to Moses de Leon) — the central text of Kabbalah. After 1492 Sephardic Jews dispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul, Salonica, Safed, Jerusalem), North Africa, the Netherlands, and the Americas, maintaining their Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language and distinctive liturgical traditions. The Shulchan Aruch by Joseph Karo (1563) codified Sephardic practice as the authoritative legal code — subsequently annotated by Moses Isserles (Rama) to include Ashkenazic customs.