500 Years of Ladino Literature:an overview

David A. WacksAssociate Professor of Spanish

University of Oregonhttp://rl.uoregon.edu/people/faculty/profiles/wacks/index.php

What is Ladino?

• Castilian (ca. 1492)• Hebrew• Turkish, Arabic, French, Slavic, etc.• French influence: Alliance Israélite

Sephardic languages

• Hebrew• Ladino• Diasporic languages• Question of relative prestige

Pre-1492

• Was there a Jewish Spanish before expulsion?

• Literary or liturgic ladino• Context: how is the language used?• Calque: Hebrew meaning, Castilian

words

Coplas de la muerte (16th c.)

• ‘Couplets on the Death of his father’• Jorge Manrique (ca. 1440-1479)• Included in manuscript with

philosophical and religious texts• Manscript from Salonika

Coplas de la muerte

Recuerde el alma dormida,avive el seso y despiertecontemplandocómo se pasa la vida,cómo se viene la muertetan callando;cuán presto se va el placer,cómo después de acordadoda dolor, cómo a nuestro parescercualquier tiempo pasado fue mejor.

16th-century fragment in Hebrew characters of Jorge Manrique’s (1440-1470) Couplets on the Death of His Father housed at the Institute of Maale Adumim, Israel. http://btjerusalem.com/aspamiac.htm

Ottoman diaspora

Ottoman diaspora

• Sultan Bayazid II to Ferdinand• Jewish press 1493 > • Salonika

– Majority Jewish– Concentration of merchants– Over 40 synagogues (turn of 20th c)

Seder Nashim (Salonika, 1550)

• Prayer book for women• Preceded by handwritten version from

Spain• Prayers and hand-washing times for all

days of the year

Seder Nasim“Es sidur de mugeres en Ladino para todo el anyo con su orden de berakhot al fin. Y el orden del lavar de las manos y otros muchos dinim los que vienen a propósito en cada...”

Dialoghi de amore (1568)

• Most important philosophical text of its time

• First published in Italian• Original language?• Dialogues between Philo and Sophia on

nature of love

• Venice edition in Roman characters

• 1568

Sabbateanism and the Donmeh

• Shabbeti Tzvi (1626-1676)• False messiah• Converts to Islam• Donmeh sect of Islamic messianic Jews

Tzvi and Ladino

• Lingua franca in Turkish Jewry• Avid singer of romansas (ballads)• Kabalistic interpretation of Ladino love

songs

Romansa de Meliselda (17th c.)

• Traditional Spanish ballad “Melisenda/Meliselda”

• Extremely popular in 16th century collections of ballads printed in Spain

• Used in Donmeh liturgy

This night my cavaliersI slept with a maidenwhose equal I have never metin the best years of my life.Meliselda is her name, Meliselda elegant and beautifulalong the course of a riverand the slope of a hillI met Meliselda,daughter of the Emperorwho came to bathe herselfin the waters of the seato bathe herself and refresh

herself,

and to change her garment.Thus she brings her bodypure as snowwith her rosy face,like milk and blood; her russet hairlike threads of goldher gleaming foreheadlike a mirror;her nose upliftedlike the quill of a scribe;her red lips, like the coral;and her little teeth,like pearls.

Conversos and Western Diaspora

• Communities in Italy and Amsterdam• Areas of Spanish influence• Populated by educated conversos

fleeing Inquisition• Use of Latin characters

Biblia de Ferrara (1533)

• Vernacular translation of Tanakh• Prepared for Italian and other

Sephardim educated in Spanish, Portuguese, or Latin

• Derived authority from high level of Spanish

• Roman characters

Calque

• Spanish that ‘sounds like Hebrew’:Song of Songs 1:2

• Mejores tus querencias más que vino

• Literally: Better your affections more than wine

• Standard Spanish: Your affections are better than wine

Isaac (Fernando) Cardoso

• 1603 (Portugal) - 1683 (Italy)• University at Salamanca• Court Physician to Phillip IV• Emigrated to Italy• Anti-Kabbalist• Brother Abraham Miguel Cardoso, major

Sabbatean and Kabbalist

Las Excelencias de los Hebreos 1679

• History of Jewish people• Catalog of outstanding traits• Refutation of common calumnies

against Jews• Spanish or Ladino?

Zohar in Ladino (1876)

• Vernacular translations of selections of the Zohar

• Ottoman diaspora (Belgrade, Smyrna, etc)

• Trans. Avraham Fintsi

Election of letter to begin creation

Para el prinsipiyo entro la letra de ת [taf] al prinsipiyo dišo: soy del mundo, gustas por krear kon mi el mundo ke leo su letra del seyo tuyo ke es אמת [emet] konviene a el rey por enpesar kon אמת [emet] y por krear kon mi el mundo.

La brigante (Jerusalem, 1911)

• Modern novels adapted in Ladino• serialization in Ladino press• French influence

– Alliance schools– Many novels originally French

Bella Starr

Belastar pasa por la más terivle de los brigantes que en todos los Estados Unidos de América. Ella nasió en el 3 fevrero 1884. Aedada de manco quinze años ella salió a la montaña como brigante.

USA

• Major emigration following mandatory conscription in Turkey (1909)

• Important centers in – New York– Seattle– Los Angeles

• Active Ladino press in NY (1918-1944)

La vara (1922)

• Published in NY (1922-1948)• Editorial offices on Rivington St. in L.E.

Side

Bibliography• Balbuena, Monique. Sephardic Literary Identities in Diaspora. Palo Alto:

Stanford University Press, 2010. (Literary study of modern Ladino literature by UO Professor).

• Benbassa, Esther, and Aron Rodrigue. Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. (General overview of Sephardic history)

• Gerber, Jane S. The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience. New York: The Free Press, 1992. (General overview of Sephardic history)

• Díaz-Mas, Paloma. The Sephardim: The Jews from Spain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. (Overview of Sephardic history with special emphasis on language and literature)

• Lazar, Moshe. The Sephardic tradition Ladino and Spanish-Jewish literature. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 1972. (Anthology of Ladino literature translated into English)

Bibliography, cont.• Muñiz-Huberman, Angelina. La Lengua florida: antología sefardí. 1st ed.

México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989. (Spanish language anthology of Sephardic literature)

• Koén-Sarano, Matilda. Folktales of Joha, Jewish trickster. 1st ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. (English translations of Ladino folktales collected by the author in Israel)

• Koén-Sarano, Matilda. King Solomon and the golden fish: tales from the Sephardic tradition. Detroit Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 2004. (English translations of Ladino folktales collected by the author in Israel)

• Ben-Ur, Aviva. Sephardic Jews in America: a diasporic history. New York: New York University Press, 2009. (History that draws heavily on Ladino press in US for source material)

• Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. (Study of Ladino press from TBI’s own Sarah Stein, currently Amado Chair of Sephardic Studies at UCLA)