Editor's Note, Volume 13, Issues 1-2, Winter-Spring 2023
Dear Readers of Sephardic Horizons,
Our hearts go out to the people of Turkey, a country to which many Sephardim trace their ancestry, for the recent devastation due to earthquakes that have caused so much loss of life and property, including even synagogues. Please contribute to organizations assisting the victims.
We bring you a bumper issue this time, consisting of six articles, an essay in Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, and six reviews.
Our articles cover a range of topics, within Sephardic studies in the broad sense. Professor Marvin Heller, one of our most loyal contributors, sends us an article about Solomon de Oliveyra, a seventeenth century rabbi of Amsterdam, who at a certain stage in his life was a follower of Shabbetai Zvi. This did not detract from his sustained contributions to Jewish publishing via many works on language (designed to help those returning to Judaism), and other works, amounting to a prolific output, both before and after his Sabbateanism. Nor did it detract from his continuing high reputation within the Amsterdam community.
Mohamed Chtatou, a Moroccan professor, in his extensively researched paper, discusses the history of the Mellah of Fez, with a thoroughgoing examination of the origin of the term mellah, and portrayals of the misfortunes and persecutions that befell the Jewish community, as well as its vibrant life.
Rachel Yona-Shalev brings us a fictionalized portrait of her Indian Jewish grandmother, in her time (the 1930s) a popular Bollywood film star. Another fictionalized memoir is Judy Belsky’s reminiscence of a Sephardic childhood in Seattle, delicately showing the inroads of assimilation on Jewish and Sephardic women and girls, and accompanied by the author’s own art. We also bring you a conversation between Annette B. Fromm and myself about my own recent book on modern Sephardic fiction in French, and an interview by Elaine Mendelow on the life narrative of a Sephardic Jew, Isaac Jacob, who lived for some time in Shanghai.
Our Ladino/Judeo-Spanish section includes Hernán Rodríguez Fisse’s perceptive essay on cortijos or communal patios, common in Mediterranean countries, and sometimes reproduced in the New World, where neighbors could converse, and life was often lived together.
Our six book reviews cover books by Arnon Z. Shorr, Adam J. Goldwyn, Anna Kohen, Michèle Sarde, Michael Frank interviewing Stella Levi, and Dario Miccoli reviewed respectively by Rochelle Strauss, Diana Matza, Annette B. Fromm, Jelena Filipović, Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt, and myself.
I am truly in awe of the scholarship and creativity that Sephardic Horizons has the privilege to publish, and am deeply grateful to our authors. I hope our flourishing review section also benefits readers by giving them numerous tastings of new books in the field of Sephardic culture, in all its aspects.
Many thanks as always to Annette B. Fromm, our associate editor, and Altan Gabbay, our webmaster, for their hard work for this issue. Welcome to Professor Regina Igel, who is now in charge of our Ladino section. We ask our readers, if you like what you read, to consider a donation to help defray our expenses (which we try to keep minimal), by clicking on the 'Donate' tab at the top of this page.
Wishing you an enjoyable reading experience,
Judith Roumani,
Editor of Sephardic Horizons