Editor's Note, Volume 14, Issue 3-4, Summer-Fall 2024
Dear Readers of Sephardic Horizons,
Once more Sephardic Horizons brings a new issue to our readers. Despite the dark clouds on our horizon this year, we strive to bring you creative writing and arts by, for and about Sephardim around the world.
I must make mention now of three dear friends of Sephardic Horizons who have recently passed:
Matilda Koen Sarano, master storyteller, whom I first met with her husband at a conference on Ladino in Livorno in 2005, and who was one of the first pioneers to promote and practice the teaching of Ladino at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. She generously gave me her multi-volume manual for learning Ladino, which I still consult, and sent us occasional stories and poetry for publication. Her connection with Italy was strong, as her family first lived in Milan, then took refuge in the countryside during the Holocaust years, as portrayed in her book, Por el plaser de kontar. Her contributions have been inestimable, and she is much missed.
Nimrod Raphaeli, born in Iraq, an economist and high official of the World Bank, who for many years has reviewed books in Arabic for us, and has been a generous donor, passed away recently. In recent years he worked with MEMRI as a senior researcher and translator from Arabic. His contributions will be greatly missed.
Another loyal major contributor to Sephardic Horizons has left us, Dogan Akman, of Turkish origin, a multi-talented judge and Sephardic scholar in Canada, and author of several important articles in our journal. To him we owe a study of the word marrano, which he pointed out is never an appropriate scholarly term, in https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume3/Issue1/Akman.html, and we have accordingly expunged it. He also authored an important early critical study of the Spanish citizenship process, https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume6/Issue3-4/Akman.html. These friends are sorely missed.
A regular and much-valued contributor, the artist Judy Belsky, sends us a poem and short story lyrically portraying the inner lives of Sephardi women, a girl and her grandmother, in Turkey in the early years of the last century.
Our Ladino/Judeo-Spanish section is enriched by more of the stories submitted to the recent competition held by Ladinokomunita. For these we are most grateful to Rachel Amado Bortnick, Aaron Shapiro, Hernan Rodriguez Fisse, and the authors themselves, Jane Mushabac, Cairo C. Robles, Forti Barokas, and Maor Malul. We also present another article, by Hernan Rodriguez Fisse, on “Aedados kontentes,” and Gloria Ascher’s two poems in praise of Maimonides. The issue is completed by six excellent, considered reviews of new books in Sephardic studies and literature.
Shana tova u metuka, Anyada buena, to all our readers, from the SH team, Judith Roumani, Annette Fromm, and Altan Gabbay, with sincere thanks to the latter two,
Judith Roumani,
Editor of Sephardic Horizons