 18th and 19th century Ashkenazi Jews, primarily German Jews, who were on the brink of getting citizenship and who were acculturating, looked to the real Sephardi Jews, the Sephardi Jews from Spain, as a model. And if you look at their synagogues, they all look Moorish because they were emulating the Sephardi culture, which they saw as superior to their own because the Sephardim had found a way to acculturate