America became the place where the majority of Jews live. Modern divisions Historically, European Jews have been classified as belonging to two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germanics" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew), denoting their Central European base, and the Sephardim, or "Hispanics" (Sefarad meaning "Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew), denoting their Spanish, Portuguese or North African base. A third historic term Mizrahim, or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "east" in Hebrew) has been used to describe other non-European Jewish communities which have bases which are located further to the east, but its usage has changed both over time and relative to the location where it was used. One definition is the Jews who never left the Middle East, in contrast to the Sephardim who went west to Spain, Portugal, and North Africa. A similar three-part distinction in the Jewish community of 16th-century Venice is noted by Johnson as being "divided into three nations, the Penentines from Spain, the Levantines who were Turkish subjects, and the Natione Tedesca or Jews of German origin..." The far more recent meaning of the term, to include both Middle Eastern and North African Jews in a single term, developed within Zionism in the mid-1940s, when Jews from these countries were all combined in one category as the target of an immigration plan. According to some sources, the current sense of the term, as an ethnic group which is distinct from European-born Jews, was invented at this time. The term constitutes a third major layer to some, and following the partition of Mandatory Palestine and Israeli independence, the Mizrahim's often-forced migration, led to their re-established communities in Israel. Smaller Jewish groups include the Georgian Jews and Mountain Jews from the Caucasus; Indian Jews including the Malabar Yehuddim (Cochin Jews), Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the ancient Italian Jewish community; the Teimanim from the Yemen; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; the Bukharan Jews of Central Asia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now extinct communities. The divisions between all these groups are rough and their boundaries are not solid. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish communities which are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In traditional