3/26/2002

New Research Center for Ladino Culture Dedicated

March 21, 2002

New Research Center for Ladino Culture Dedicated
at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

A center for the research of Ladino Culture was dedicated yesterday at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Yitzhak Navon, the Fifth Israeli president and Director of the National Authority for Ladino Culture, and Carlos de Barcena Portoles, the Spanish Ambassador to Israel, attended the moving ceremony. The legendary Yehoram Gaon read poems by his father, Moshe David Gaon, a prominent Ladino poet and composer.
Director of the new Center, Prof. Tamar Alexander, holder of the Estelle S. Frankfurter Chair in Sephardic Culture, noted that, “Today, Ladino is disappearing—certainly as a language in everyday use—and therefore it is particularly important to establish this center.” There were those who took upon themselves the task of the collection, rescue, and research of the treasures of Ladino culture as early as the 1920s, among them Moshe Attias, Moshe David Gaon, David Benvenisti and Avraham Ya’ari.
“Thanks to their work,” Alexander says, “almost every Israeli knows of poems like The Sephardic Garden written by Yitzhak Navon, or has heard Yehoram Gaon singing Ladino ballads. Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, is the language that unified the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. After the expulsion, they were absorbed mainly into the countries of the Ottoman Empire, such as Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, as well as Italy, Romania and northern Morocco.” According to Alexander, the new Ladino Research Center will actively work to preserve the Ladino language, extend the study of its literary and musical works and investigate the nature of the inter-relationships between adjoining cultures. The new Center will invite world-renowned researchers from the spheres of history, literature, language, customs and folklore of the Sephardic Jews, and will encourage and support various studies in the field.
A professor in the Department of Hebrew Literature, Alexander’s field of specialization is folk literature, with a special emphasis on the Ladino-speaking culture. Working alongside Alexander will be Prof. Ya’acov Bentolila.
a, a language expert; Dr. Luis Landa, a literature researcher; and Matilda Koen-Sarano, a teacher of Ladino and an author and storyteller. The center’s scientific director is Avner Peretz.
BGU President Prof. Avishay Braverman and Prof. Moshe Lazar, one of the world’s leading Ladino researchers, also spoke at the event, which included an artistic performance of ballads with musical accompaniment by Yasmin and Kochava Levy, stories from the heritage of Spanish Jewry told by Matilda Koen-Sarano and flamenco dancing by Sharon Saguy.
For more information, contact Prof. Tamar Alexander: 972-8 646-1775; or 972-53 904 299, or University Spokesman Amir Rozenblit, Tel: 972-8-646-1802; 972-58-795 811 or e-mail: rosenbli@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Picture Caption: Prof. Tamar Alexander at the opening of the new Ladino Culture
Credit: Dani Machlis/BGU

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