On Sat, 30 Jan 2010, Chris Doss wrote:
> Russian Jews came in from Spain
Huh? Russia's Jews mainly came from its share in the partition of Poland.
Sephardic Jews -- those who trace their origins to expulsion from the Spanish in 1492 -- mainly ended up in the Middle East. Some key groups ended up in the New World and in Western Europe -- but virtually none in Russia AFAIK.
> and until around 1945 (important date, that) tended to speak a
> completely different language.
Which was Yiddish, the language of Ashkinazi Jews, and not Ladino, the language of Sephardic Jews.
Michael