BOOK LAUNCH "A JEWISH VOICE FROM OTTOMAN SALONICA: THE LADINO MEMOIR OF SA'ADI BESALEL A-LEVI"

“A JEWISH VOICE FROM OTTOMAN SALONICA: THE LADINO MEMOIR OF SA’ADI BESALEL A-LEVI” BOOK LAUNCH
(Edited by Aron Rodrigue and Sarah Abrevaya Stein)
Stanford University Press, 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 4:30pm

Levinthal Hall – Stanford Humanities Center
Speakers: Aron Rodrigue (Stanford), Sarah A. Stein (UCLA), Ali   Yaycioğlu (Stanford) and Steven Zipperstein (Stanford).

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 political and social changes and the World Wars. Co-sponsored by the Humanities Center and the Department of History.