A jewish voice from Ottoman Salonica: the ladino memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi
In: Stanford Studies in Jewish History and C
In: Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture Ser.
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 p