Sephardic Haredim to support its position. Sephardic Haredim differ from their Ashkenazi counterparts in a number of significant ways. The central differentiating factor is that Sephardic Haredim follow the rulings and customs of their rabbis, which are rooted in the traditions of the Jews formerly from the Islamic world. Additional differences exist on issues such as political allegiance, as the vast majority of Sephardic Haredim are identified with Shas, while most Ashkenazi Haredim are identified with either United Torah Judaism or, to a lesser extent, HaEdah HaChareidis. Sephardic Haredim as a community tend to be moderately supportive of Zionism, while maintaining a
Sephardic Bnei Anusim Sephardic Bnei Anusim Sephardic Bnei Anusim (, , lit. "Children [of the] coerced [converted] Spanish [Jews]) is a modern term used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jewish which were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain. The vast majority of Conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, their descendants in both these countries numbering in the millions. The small minority of Conversos who did emigrate normally chose destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but also more