Uhhh... Not really. "Oriental Jews?" Actually, "Sephardim" are Jews of Spanish or Portugese extraction, which "Ashenazim" are typically of eastern European extraction.
This is also typical of arabs in general... To project their own problems onto others... I'm really not aware of any "issues" between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, although they usually have their own "communities," but that's more due to cultural differences. On the other hand, if there are people "looking down" on others, it would be the humanist, secular Jews (JINO) in Israel, who look down on anyone who doesn't believe as they do, much like leftists everywhere else in the world.
Mark
My wife is from Morocco and Sephardic, that's how I come to know about this stuff. It's 2 lines of tradition that evolved somewhat in isolation from each other due to the lack of communicatiion between the "oriental" and "occidental" worlds.
Uh, ...almost. Sephardim are Jews from Spain, Portugal, plus the Arab world (which includes a lot of Jews, most of whom now live in Israel).
The best way to remember the Ashkenazim / Sephardim division is to look at a map of the world at the maximum extent of the muslim conquest of Europe (722 AD). The areas that were muslim at that time are where the Sephardic Jews came from, the rest is Ashkenazic.
My wife is from Morocco and Sephardic, that's how I come to know about this stuff. It's 2 lines of tradition that evolved somewhat in isolation from each other due to the lack of communicatiion between the "oriental" and "occidental" worlds.