Jews from the Middle East, too, are often seen as Westerners of a sort, because European colonialism treated e.g. Algerian and Iraqi Jews as intermediate betwee

Jews from the Middle East, too, are often seen as Westerners of a sort, because European colonialism treated e.g. Algerian and Iraqi Jews as intermediate between Europeans and other local populations. They were accorded privileges and often merged into European society. Look at the Sassoon family of Iraq as one striking 19th-century case. I suppose it is similar to how educated Ismaili Muslims are viewed as Western-adjacent, because their hereditary spiritual leaders the Aga Khans have been resident in Europe, and intermixed with the European aristocracy, for a very long time now.