A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica
Author | : Aron Rodrigue |
Publisher | : Stanford University Press |
Total Pages | : 434 |
Release | : 2012-01-11 |
ISBN-10 | : 9780804781770 |
ISBN-13 | : 080478177X |
Rating | : 4/5 (77X Downloads) |
Download or read book A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica written by Aron Rodrigue and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.