A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica: The Ladino Memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi

by Aron Rodrigue (Editor), Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Editor), Isaac Jerusalmi

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 finely wrought 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 a prominent journalist and publisher, one of the most significant creators of modern Sephardic print culture. He was also a rebel who accused 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.

Genres: History, Jewish, Memoir, Judaism

432 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2011

Reviews

[Miguel Vian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating little window into a bygone world, where Jews and Muslims lived in tolerance under the Ottoman rule. Something to remember in our times of renewed Zionism. Reading the original Ladino manuscript is a deeply moving experience for someone who was born in Spain, the country where the Sephardim of this book, living in faraway Salonica three hundred years afterwards, were exiled from.

[Meilech · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look into an era and a place that is not often discussed nowadays. The memmoir is gripping and gives you a look at some aspects of Jewish life at the time as well as their coexistence with their non Jewish neighbors.