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Notes -
Sephardic Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity (Marranos) certainly were overrepresented in positions of influence, power and wealth in the Latin world, and later two of the most prominent Anglosphere Jewish politicians of the 19th century (Disraeli and Judah Benjamin) were Sephardic. Sephardim were extremely overrepresented among the affluent middle classes in Thessaloniki, Istanbul and elsewhere before WW1. And Mizrachi Jews were also very overrepresented in powerful positions, both as court advisers and as bankers, retailers, department store magnates, theater owners and so on across Egypt and the rest of Islamic North Africa, and in Persia and the Levant at times. And even before the colonial period were overrepresented among courtiers, bankers, jewelers, merchants and so on.
But again, the baseline gentile host populations have / had lower performance, so this ‘works’ even if Mizrachim average, say, 95, provided those around them are 80 or 85. The Lebanese do extremely well in Central America, but badly in Australia - the difference is a host population at 80 vs a host population at 100.
That's really interesting - I hadn't seen any sources which made the claim that they were overrepresented in those areas but I freely admit to not looking at the situation throughout history. Do you have any good links for more information on that topic? Most of the sources I can find compare Sephardim/Misrahim to Ashkenazim, which really doesn't do them any favours.
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