Mizrahi (or  eastern ) Jews are from West Asia, Central Asia, and North Africa, including black-eyed, high-cheekboned Yemenite Jews; Jews from the mountains of Kurdistan and the dusty plateaus of Bukhara; and Iraqi Jews, whose community existed from the days of the Babylonian Captivity in the sixth century b.c. until modern times.
Iraqi Jews originate from back in the time of being captive in Babylon during the sixth century b.c., there are also the Yemenite Jew and Mizrahi Jew, and Jews from the mountains of Kurdistan.
Maybe he is a feel-good optimist or maybe the answers are really simpler than our unnecessarily complex world would like to believe, but either way, the Dalai Lama is one of the few people in the world whom I can legitimately not feel cynical about.