Answers to Quora Questions by Yair Davidiy (1 January 2017, 14 Tevet, 5778)
Sephardi Jews are mainly Jews who lived in Arab or non-Arab Muslim countries. They were cruelly oppressed for centuries. In the end their neighbors attacked them and forced them to flee. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries is greater than that of Palestinian refugees. The properties and wealth that were stolen from them exceeded, in the values of the time, that which the Palestinians left behind. In other words many of the Sephardim (i.e. Eastern Jews) came to Israel because they had to.
Why is that?
Because there was no where else to go and Israel belongs to them.
Israel belongs to ALL Jews. This refers to ALL Israel especially Jerusalem and the West Bank. Whether or not a person is welcome in his own home is another story. Israeli society and its establishment are pleased to receive as many Jews as want to come here. Within the younger generation divisions between Sephardim and Ashkenazim have become blurred. This is not always for the better since it erodes tradition. Social studies in other places show that where one has two different sides then they who are proud of where they came from get on better with the others. Here we do not have two entirely different groupings but rather a varied expression of the one Jewish reality. Jews who come to Israel are coming home.