Arab Jews ( ; ) is a term for Jews living in or originating from the Arab world. The term is politically contested, often by Zionists or by Jews with roots in the Arab world who prefer to be identified as Mizrahi Jews. Many left or were expelled from Arab countries in the decades following the founding of Israel in 1948, and took up residence in Israel, Western Europe, the United States and Latin America. Jews living in Arab-majority countries historically mostly used various Judeo-Arabic dialects as their primary community language, with Hebrew used for liturgical and cultural purposes (literature, philosophy, poetry, etc.). Many aspects of their culture (music, clothes, food, architecture of synagogues and houses, etc.) have commonality with local non-Jewish Arab populations. They usually follow Sephardi Jewish liturgy, and are (counting their descendants) by far the largest portion of Mizrahi Jews. Though Golda Meir, in an interview as late as 1972 with Oriana Fallaci, explicitly referred to Jews from Arab countries as "Arab Jews", the use of the term is controversial, as the vast majority of Jews with origins in Arab-majority countries do not identify as Arabs, and most Jews who lived amongst Arabs did not call themselves "Arab Jews" or view themselves as such. A closely related, but older term denoting Arabic-speaking Jews is Musta'arabi Jews. In recent decades, some Jews have self-identified as Arab Jews, such as Ella Shohat, who uses the term in contrast to the Zionist establishment's categorization of Jews as either Ashkenazim or Mizrahim; the latter, she believes, have been oppressed as the Arabs have. Other Jews, such as Albert Memmi, say that Jews in Arab countries would have liked to be Arab Jews, but centuries of abuse by Arab Muslims prevented it, and now it's too late. The term is mostly used by post-Zionists and Arab nationalists. The term can also sometimes refer to Jewish converts of Arab birth, such as Baruch Mizrahi or Nasrin Kadri, or people of mixed Jewish-Arab parentage, such as Lucy Ayoub. Terminology The Arabic al-Yahūd al-ʿArab and Hebrew Yehudim `Aravim literally mean 'Arab Jews', a phrasing that in current usage is considered derogatory by Israelis of Mizrachi origin. It is to be distinguished from a similar term that circulated in Palestine in late Ottoman times, when Arab Palestinians referred to their Jewish compatriots as 'Arab-born Jews' (Yahud awlad ʿArab), which can also be translated as 'Arab Jews'.