Sephardic law and customs Spain or Portugal (as well as one Romaniot and one Ashkenazi synagogue). In a process lasting from the 16th through the 19th century, the native Jewish communities of most Arab and Ottoman countries adapted their pre-existing liturgies, many of which already had a family resemblance with the Sephardic, to follow the Spanish rite in as many respects as possible. Some reasons for this are: The most important theological, as opposed to practical, motive for harmonization was the Kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria and Ḥayim Vital. Luria himself always maintained that it was the duty of every Jew to abide by
Sephardic Bnei Anusim mulattos), it is estimated that up to 50 million of these possess Sephardic Jewish ancestry to some degree. Recent DNA evidence and historical settlement patterns of Sephardi-origin New Christians indicates that the concentration of these Hispanic/Latino-assimilated Christian-professing descendants of Sephardic Jews are found primarily in the following localities (from north to south): The common denominator between all the abovementioned localities is that they are situated in remote areas, isolated either by distance or geographical features from the Spanish colonial administrative centers, which at the time were Mexico City, in central Mexico, and Lima, in central Peru. This is in complete