Today, the majority of Jews are descended from either the Ashkenazi or Sephardic subgroups of the Jewish diaspora. In the strictest sense, Jews nowadays refer to or are descended from Jews who were driven from Portugal and Spain in the 15th century. In a broader sense, they include Yemenite Jews, who were separated from other Jewish communities for so long that they are technically a distinct group, and Jews from the Middle East and North Africa who went further east into Asia and are sometimes referred to as Oriental Jews.

The Iberian peninsula saw the arrival of Sephardi from all corners of the Mediterranean. Later, numerous Ashkenazi Jews from Western Europe migrated to the wealthier neighborhoods of Spain and Portugal. Although after being forced to flee Spain and Portugal, people from a certain region tended to settle down together, the gene pool was therefore diverse and vast. As a result, sub-groups like Moroccan Jews or Tunisian Jews are more frequently used to designate Sephardic Jews.

The exiled Sephardim gradually lost their prominence as the pride of the global Jewish community. The Sephardic Jewish population in Europe was essentially eradicated by the Holocaust, while Jews in the nations of North Africa held by Germany or Vichy France narrowly escaped the same fate. About 160,000 people still speak ladino, making it a critically endangered language.