Ashkenazi Jews Jews worldwide. In Israel, the term "Ashkenazi" is now used in a manner unrelated to its original meaning, often applied to all Jews who settled in Europe and sometimes including those whose ethnic background is actually Sephardic. Jews of any non-Ashkenazi background, including Mizrahi, Yemenite, Kurdish and others who have no connection with the Iberian Peninsula, have similarly come to be lumped together as Sephardic. Jews of mixed background are increasingly common, partly because of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi, and partly because many do not see such historic markers as relevant to their life experiences as Jews. Religious Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews in Israel class, and the disparity between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim diminished (but did not completely disappear), with Mizrahi political expression becoming increasingly linked to the Likud and Shas parties; Shas was founded as a party to represent Mizrahim while Likud, the largest right-wing party, in Israel became increasingly influenced by Mizrahi political articulation, with the Mizrahi middle class' political coming-of-age held by political science commentators to be embodied by the rise of Mizrahi Likud politicians such as Moshe Kahlon and Miri Regev. The Ashkenazi vote has, aside from electorally limited majority-Ashkenazi ultra-religious parties such as Habayit Hayehudi, long been associated with secularism