500 Years of Ladino Literature

an overview
 Overview
• What is Ladino?
• Sephardic languages
• Pre-1492
• Ottoman diaspora
• Conversos and Western Diaspora
• Modernity
• USA
 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 despierte
contemplando
cómo se pasa la vida,
cómo se viene la muerte
tan callando;
cuán presto se va el placer,
cómo después de acordado
da dolor,
cómo a nuestro parescer
cualquiera tiempo pasado
fue mejor.
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 cavaliers
I slept with a maiden
whose equal I have never met
in the best years of my life.
Meliselda is her name,
Meliselda elegant and beautiful
along the course of a river
and the slope of a hill
I met Meliselda,
daughter of the Emperor
who came to bathe herself
in the waters of the sea
to bathe herself and refresh
herself,
and to change her garment.
Thus she brings her body
pure as snow
with her rosy face,
like milk and blood;
her russet hair
like threads of gold
her gleaming forehead
like a mirror;
her nose uplifted
like 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 ‫[ אמת‬emet] konviene a el rey
por enpesar kon ‫[ אמת‬emet] 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
 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.
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