Modern Ladino Culture

Olga Borovaya

Description

Finalist, 2012 National Jewish Book Awards, Sephardic Culture

Olga Borovaya explores the emergence and expansion of print culture in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the mother tongue of the Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman Empire, in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. She provides the first comprehensive study of the three major forms of Ladino literary production—the press, belles lettres, and theater—as a single cultural phenomenon. The product of meticulous research and innovative methodology, Modern Ladino Culture offers a new perspective on the history of the Ladino press, a novel approach to the study of belles lettres in Ladino and their relationship to their European sources, and a fine-grained critique of Sephardic plays as venues for moral education and politicization.

Acknowledgements
Note on Translation, Transcription, Proper Names, and Dates
Introduction

Part 1. The Press
The Emergence of modern Culture Production in Ladino: The Sephardi Press
The Press in Salonica: a Case Study

Part 2. Belles Lettres
The Serialized Novel as Rewriting
Ladino Fiction: Case Studies

Part 3. Theater
Sephardi Theater: Project and Practice
Ladino Drama: Case Studies
Conclusion

Notes
Index

Sujets

• Middle Eastern Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Jewish
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Jews
• Literature
• Middle East
• Journalism

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 05 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253005564
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Modern Ladino Culture
I NDIANA S ERIES IN S EPHARDI AND M IZRAHI S TUDIES
Harvey E. Goldberg and Matthias Lehmann, editors
Modern Ladino Culture
Press, Belles Lettres, and Theatre in the Late Ottoman Empire

Olga Borovaya
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2012 by Olga Borovaya
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Borovaia, O. V. (Ol ga Vol fovna) Modern Ladino culture : press, belles lettres, and theater in the late Ottoman Empire / Olga Borovaya. p. cm.-(Indiana series in Sephardi and Mizrahi studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35672-7 (cloth : alk. paper)-

ISBN 978-0-253-00556-4 (e-pub) 1. Jews-Turkey-Intellectual life-19th century.- 2. Jews-Turkey-Intellectual life-20th century. 3. Ladino literature-19th century History and criticism. 4. Ladino literature-20th century-History and criticism. 5. Ladino newspapers-Turkey. 6. Jewish newspapers-Turkey. 7. Jewish theater- Turkey-History. 8. Turkey-Ethnic relations. I. Title. DS135.T8B68 2011 305.892 405609034 - DC 23 2011030436
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
To my parents, with gratitude and admiration
You cannot find out what a man means by simply studying his spoken or written statements, even though he has spoken or written with perfect command of language and perfectly truthful intention. In order to find out his meaning you must also know what the question was . . . to which the thing he has said or written was meant as an answer.
-R. G. Collingwood, Autobiography
Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation, Transcription, Proper Names, and Dates

Introduction

Part 1. The Press
1. The Emergence of Modern Cultural Production in Ladino: The Sephardi Press
2. The Press in Salonica: A Case Study
Part 2. Belles Lettres
3. The Serialized Novel as Rewriting
4. Ladino Fiction: Case Studies
Part 3. Theater
5. Sephardi Theater: Project and Practice
6. Ladino Drama: Case Studies
Conclusion

Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
Having been trained as a Romance philologist, I would have never turned to history had I not met Steven Zipperstein who, aside from encouraging me, offered an exceptional opportunity to immerse myself in Jewish studies for which I am profoundly grateful to him. My full and joyful conversion to history, however, happened during the years of work and intensive conversations with Aron Rodrigue, the echo of which can be perceived on almost every page of this book. Aron Rodrigue s rigorous thinking, openness to new ideas, and astonishingly wide interests have been the major influence on my work, and this book would have not been written without his faith in me, immense support, and unwavering friendship.
I am also deeply grateful to Julia Phillips Cohen, my outstanding research assistant of many years, enthusiastic interlocutor, colleague, and friend who, in three different countries, shared with me the unmatched joys of reading the Ladino press.
I am greatly indebted to Daniela Blei, Dushan Djordjevich, Matthias Lehmann, Scott Lerner, Sergey Lyosov, Kenneth Moss, Avner Peres, Anat Plocker, and Maurice Samuels for offering their expertise in history, literature, and linguistics as well as their invaluable suggestions.
I warmly thank David Epstein, my indefatigable and resourceful voluntary assistant, who has made the most of every opportunity to do research for me in various continents and languages.
My warmest thanks go to Devin Naar, who promptly and generously answered my questions during the final stages of work on this book, when I had no access to libraries.
During the revision process, this book tremendously benefited from the insightful comments and stimulating questions of its first readers: Aviva Ben-Ur, Kenneth Moss, Aron Rodrigue, Maurice Samuels, and Sarah Stein.
The idea for the cover design, tastefully developed by Indiana University Press, belongs to Maurice Samuels. I am profoundly grateful to Angela Burton, managing editor at Indiana University Press, for her immense help and patience during the final months of production of this book.
It was always an immense pleasure to do research at the Ben Zvi Institute Library, some of whose materials are used in this book. I am particularly indebted to Dov Cohen, its renowned Ladino press expert, for his assistance and for sharing his vast knowledge. Earlier, my research was greatly facilitated by the library staff of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and by Sonia Moss at the Green Library at Stanford.
None of this research would have been possible without the generosity of foundations and private donors. My project was supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Primo Levi Fellowship (Andrew and Erna Viterbi), the American Academy for Jewish Research, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the American Philosophical Society, as well as by my faithful friends Ellen Bob and David Waksberg, David and Charlotte Epstein, and Ludwig and Carol Tannenwald.
Note on the Translation, Transcription, Proper Names, and Dates
All translations in this book, unless otherwise indicated, are mine. The Bible is quoted from the New Revised Standard Version
In transcribing Ladino, I use the system adopted by the periodical Aki Yerushalayim with one difference: the letter yod representing the consonantal element in diphthongs is rendered here by the letter y (e.g., tyempo , not tiempo ).
I spell the names of Sephardi literati as they or their contemporaries Romanized them (hence, Alexandre Benghiat). The names whose contemporaneous Romanized versions are not available are transcribed according to the general rules, with the exception of those widely used in scholarly works (e.g., Fresco , not Fresko). When a first name is taken from the Bible and therefore spelled in Ladino texts as in Hebrew, i.e., without vowels, I represent its Ladino pronunciation (e.g., Shemuel , not Samuel or Shmuel ).
In the titles of Ladino periodicals and books, I capitalize only the first meaningful word (e.g., El Jurnal israelit ) as is common in other Romance languages.
Turkish words and proper names are transliterated to ensure their correct pronunciation by English speakers (e.g., Mejid , not Mecid ).
In transliterating Hebrew, I follow the Library of Congress rules with one exception: the letter het is represented by ch.
If a former Ottoman city had multiple names, all of them, including the current one, are indicated in parentheses when it is mentioned for the first time.
All dates, unless otherwise stated, are according to the Gregorian calendar.
Modern Ladino Culture
Introduction
I
This book is the first study of the three forms of modern Ladino cultural production-the press, belles lettres, and theater-in their unity as a single cultural phenomenon produced by Sephardi Jews in the late Ottoman period. Having no counterparts in previous epochs, these three genres emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of westernization and secularization. They were imported by Sephardi westernizers from Europe but took root and developed in their own ways in the local culture. Since they were created by the same literati for the same audience and with the same intention, by examining each of them in isolation from the other two, one risks failing to see the new cultural movement in its entirety or to comprehend its place in Sephardi history. Nevertheless, this study is divided into three parts organized chronologically in the order in which the genres emerged, the press being the earliest one. However, this division, which is essential for my analysis, does not obscure the total picture because belles lettres is examined against the backdrop of the press which brought it into existence, and theater is discussed in the context of both the press, which played an exceptional role in its development, and belles lettres, the genre closest to it in terms of subject matter.
As I am not concerned with the aesthetic value of Ladino culture but, rather, regard its textual manifestations as a source on Sephardi history, this book will focus mainly on printed materials. For this reason, I will limit my examination of Sephardi Theater to Ladino plays and the representation of this cultural practice in the press. Furthermore, from a historian s standpoint, examining a Ladino text only within the framework of a single genre category or even in the context of the author s work as a whole is not sufficient. In my case studies, I will put Ladino novels, newspaper articles, and plays under analysis side by side with other contemporaneous publications, including rabbinic writings.
An in-depth examination of Ladino print culture is imperative for Sep-hardic studies as a field due to the extreme scarcity of a