Ladino and Spanish-Sephardi Judaism: the languages, customs, culture and history

THE PROVERBS AT THE END OF THIS POSTING ARE INTENDED TO INFORM AND AMUSE, NOT OFFEND AND I APOLOGISE FOR ANY THAT MAY BE CAUSED. I ALSO DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THEM

Ladino is the Sephardi equivalent of Yiddish: a Jewish dialect with local influences. Like Yiddish it had a rich culture that was largely destroyed in the Holocaust but has not been revived to such a great extent as it’s European counterpart. A simplified explanation of Ladino is 60-70% Medieval Spanish with the influences of Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Greek and some French. A good way to look at Ladino is to imagine a conversation between a Shakespearean actor and a modern Englishman. They would be able to keep up with each other but have to concentrate on what is being said to extract the meaning. That is how a Ladino speaker would appear to be when communicating with a modern Spaniard. In this article there will be a more detailed explanation of Ladino culture and history starting with the Spanish Inquisition and finishing with just after the Holocaust.

In 1391, there was a major turning point in Jewish history. The era of anusim (forced converts) had begun. In the summer of that year, anti-Semitic riots swept across the various Christian communities (by now all of Spain had been taken from the Muslims except Granada in the south-east) affecting the cities of Leon, Majorca, Toledo, Alicante and Valencia. The violence spread throughout the Iberian peninsular but was non-existent in Navarra and Portugal.

In February 1413 the disputation of Tortosa began. The disputation was a theological debate between Jewish and Spanish-Catholic scholars on matters such as Messianic philosophy, errors and blasphemies in the Talmud and Jesus. Over the next seventy years the Spanish Jews became more and more persecuted. In January 1483 the Jews of Andalusia were expelled and later that year in October, Thomas Torquemada was made Inquisitor General of the whole of Catholic Spain. Ironically, Torquemada was of Jewish descent and had hundreds of thousands of his kinsmen killed, tortured or expelled from their homes.

On January 2nd 1492 the last Muslim stronghold in Spain: Granada fell to King Ferdinand and Isobella. Now they controlled the whole of Spain. The expulsion of the Jews went like clockwork over the next eight months. On March 2nd Torquemada presented to the King a plan to expel the Jews. On April 29th the edict was formally published and in August the last Jews left, roughly at the same time as Columbus set sail on his first voyage to America. Just before the expulsion, a book was published called Alboraique. The term Alboraique referred to Marranos Jews or “New Christians”. They were illustrated in the book as Mohammed the Prophet’s beast called Borak, a monstrosity that was neither horse or donkey. The message was that the Marranos weren’t Jew or Christian and had no place in Spanish society being disloyal lazy heretics who were not fit to work, pray or fight.

The Spanish Jews went mainly eastwards to the Ottoman empire. Here, the majority settled in Istanbul and Salonika/Thessaloniki but many others went to Athens, Rhodes, Kos, Bosnia and Macedonia. There they spoke Spanish with some Hebrew that had been previously integrated into the language but gradually, the indigenous languages worked there way into the Judeo-Spanish. This would be known as Ladino.

In the event that a Macedonian and Turkish Ladino speaker got together then their respective ways of speaking the language would be slightly different as the indigenous languages of where they came from weren’t the same but they would still be able to communicate clearly. Later, some Jews of Spanish origin went further East to Arab lands such as Iraq and North Africa. There they thrived, until the declaration of the State of Israel. Whole communities emigrated there en-masse when the law of return of declared (this entitled any Jew to come and live in Israel without a visa or official documentation) in July 1950. Some Iraqi Jews (most notably the Sassoon family) went to India where minor but successful communities were established. Some Turkish Jews also to Israel after 1516 when Emperor Selim I took the Holy Land, particularly the mystical city of Safed (Tzvat). In 1555 the Shulchan Aruch (a definitive code to Jewish law) was published after being written by Rabbi Joseph Caro. Strangely, both Sephardi and Ashkenazic communities accept the Shulchan Aruch as with most laws, they disagree on something. From the late 16th Century to early 20th, the Jews of the Ottoman Empire flourished.

There has been evidence of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom (after they were expelled in 1290) since 1494. These Jews were almost certainly Marranos who fled from Spain. Clandestine Jewish communities lived mostly in London where they were largely successful although in 1594, Queen Elizabeth I’s doctor, Rodrigo Lopez was executed on charges of treason and conspiracy to murder the monarch. Although officially he wasn’t executed for being Jewish, English society at the time was highly anti-Semitic (strong evidence can be found in William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice) and xenophobic. When Lopez was executed England was at war with Phillip II of Spain and the public opinion was that any Spaniard was a traitor who should be put to death. Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained the dominant community in British Jewry until the late 19th century when Eastern Europe was being racked with violent pogroms against the Jewish communities. Many went westwards to England and America, where they from the predominant communities.

Nowadays in Britain, Spanish and Portuguese Jewry is dwindling. The main London communities, Bevis Marks; Lauderdale Road, Holland Park and Wembley are surrounded by property that first-time young buyers are unable to afford so when they were old enough, they moved to areas of the city where there were large Jewish communities and cheaper property. The remaining members of the community are often elderly and not especially religious, often driving to Synagogue on a Saturday morning as very few of them live close enough to walk there. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews who moved out from the main communities are so scattered and few that there aren’t enough to make a minyan (quorum of Jewish males over 13 required to hold a full Jewish service) where prayers can be recited to their own rites.

The culture of Ladino is as rich as Yiddish but more obscure. It has a wonderful sense of humour, mainly focusing on mothers in laws, domineering wives and women somewhat lacking in the intelligence of men.

To end this posting I have included some Ladino proverbs that I and my father enjoy and find amusing. I also think that they reflect Ladino culture particularly well.

He goes up to take a friend but down to take a wife
A silent donkey can pass as a knowledgeable person
Who listens to his wife is stupid, who doesn’t is crazy
Long hair-short brain (a generic term for women)
You will not be able to take your fortune to the grave
The mouth does, the mouth undoes
Youth happens only once-a person who doesn’t enjoy it is crazy
The woman builds, the woman destroys
The woman and the wine make a man go crazy
A good women is one who speaks little
I love you very much but stay away from my wallet
It is never too late to do good
A good son-in-law is one who sees his mother-in-laws on fire and saves her
Some are born with good luck and fortune, others with bad luck and a hernia
Crazy the mother-crazy the daughter