Ashkenazi Jews from Jews who settled in the Iberian Peninsula, and Mizrahi Jews, who descend from Jews who remained in the Middle East. The name "Ashkenazi" derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Japhet, son of Noah, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (). The name of Gomer has often been linked to the ethnonym Cimmerians. Biblical "Ashkenaz" is usually derived from Assyrian "Aškūza" (cuneiform "Aškuzai/Iškuzai"), a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates, whose name is usually associated with the name of the Scythians. The
Haredim and Zionism Sephardi or Mizrahi rabbis is far lower than among Ashkenazi rabbis, and these constitute a small minority of the Sephardi Haredi leadership. The Sephardi Haredi political party in the Knesset is Shas, which represents the vast majority of Sephardi Haredim, and is headed by Aryeh Deri. In 2010, Shas joined the World Zionist Organization, and officially became the first Zionist Haredi party. The party's long-time spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, opposed saying Hallel in the Yom HaAtzmaut prayer service, but writes that, "One may say Hallel after the completion of the prayers, without the blessing..." While in the past, when