A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica : the Ladino memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica : the Ladino memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi
（Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture）
Stanford University Press, c2012
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-362) and index
English with Ladino romanized text and English translation
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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.
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