Semitic languages
The similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages was accepted by Jewish and Islamic scholars since medieval times. The languages were familiar to Western European scholars due to historical contact with neighbouring Near Eastern countries and through Biblical studies, and a comparative analysis of Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic was published in Latin in 1538 by Guillaume Postel. Almost two centuries later, Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and the Ethiopian Semitic languages. However, neither scholar named this grouping as "Semitic".
Arab Jews
Jews living in Arab-majority countries speak Arabic, using one of the many Arabic dialects (see also Judeo-Arabic languages) 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 Arab population. They usually follow Sephardi Jewish liturgy, making them one of the largest groups among Mizrahi Jews. Most of the population was either forced out, fled or voluntarily left after the founding of Israel in 1948, for the new Jewish state or to Western Europe, and a few went to the United States and Latin America. The term was not commonly used until the modern era.