Mizrahi Jews usage, with "Sephardi" being used in a broad sense and including Mizrahi Jews and North African Jews as well as Sephardim proper. From the point of view of the official Israeli rabbinate, any rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel are under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel. As of 2005, 61% of Israeli Jews were of full or partial Mizrahi ancestry. "Mizrahi" is literally translated as "Oriental", "Eastern", "Mizraḥ", Hebrew for "east". In Arabic, "Misr" means Egypt; and that is also the term used for Egypt in the Bible. In the past the word "Mizrahim", corresponding to
Modern Hebrew phonology of modern Hebrew are Oriental and Non-Oriental. Oriental Hebrew was chosen as the preferred accent for Israel by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but has since declined in popularity. The description in this article follows the language as it is pronounced by native Israeli speakers of the younger generations. According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, in the 1880s (the time of the beginning of the Zionist movement and the Hebrew revival) there were three groups of Hebrew regional accents: Ashkenazi (Eastern European), Sephardi (Southern European), and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern, Iranian, and North African). Over time features of