A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica

The Ladino Memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi

432 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

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.

• Reihe: Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture
• Themen: Gesellschaft und Sozialwissenschaften Gesellschaft und Kultur, allgemein Gesellschaftliche Gruppen, Gemeinschaften und Identitäten Religiöse Gemeinschaften
• ISBN: 9780804786942
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 12.12.2012
• Größe: 228 x 151 mm
• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Übersetzung: Isaac Jerusalmi
• Herausgegeben von: Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Aron Rodrigue