A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica

by Rodrigue, Aron; Stein, Sarah Abrevaya; Jerusalmi, Isaac

• ISBN13: 9780804771665
• ISBN10: 0804771669
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-11
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

This book presents for the first time the complete text of the earliest known Ladino-language memoir, transliterated from the original script, translated into English, and introduced and explicated by the editors. The memoirist, Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi (1820-1903), wrote about Ottoman Jews' daily life at a time when the long-ascendant fabric of Ottoman society was just beginning to unravel. His vivid portrayal of life in Salonica, a major port in the Ottoman Levant with a majority-Jewish population, thus provides a unique window into a way of life before it disappeared as a result of profound political and social changes and the World Wars. Sa'adi was himself a prominent journalist and publisher, one of the most significant creators of modern Sephardic print culture. He was also a rebel, accusing the Jewish leadership of Salonica of being corrupt, abusive, and fanatical; that leadership, in turn, excommunicated him from the Jewish community. The experience of excommunication pervades Sa'adi's memoir, which documents a world that its author was himself actively involved in changing.

Table of Contents

Editors' Acknowledgments	p. vii
Note on Translation and Transliteration	p. ix
Note on Currencies, Weights, and Measures	p. xi
Note on Sigla Used in the Ladino Romanized Text and English Translation	p. xii
Editors' Introduction	p. xiii
The Memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi
English Translation	p. 3
Romanized Transliteration	p. 149
Notes	p. 295
Glossary	p. 297
Works Consulted	p. 357
Index	p. 363
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