Editor's Note, Volume 15, Issue 2, Summer 2025

Dear Readers of Sephardic Horizons,

I am writing to you from Jerusalem. As the sounds of war quieten down somewhat in Israel and other parts of the Middle East, and as one fervently hopes that the fragile ceasefire may hold, we bring you a new issue of Sephardic Horizons. This issue offers five articles, two stories in Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, and five reviews.

Three of our articles relate to Spain and Portugal. Matthew Warshawsky discusses an earlier Jewish exile, within Iberia, inspiring the poetry of the eleventh-century Moses ibn Ezra, who lamented the loss of al-Andalus. Marvin J. Heller introduces us to the popular tale of the king’s adviser and the king’s son, composed in a Hebrew version in Spain in the thirteenth century and published later in Constantinople, Mantua, and many other printing centers over the centuries. We are also honored to have received a lengthy letter from the president of the Portuguese Oporto community, Gabriel Senderowicz, responding to the critical article analyzing the procedures of Spanish and Portuguese citizenship, authored by Lauren Weiner, in our previous issue. We are pleased that this deeply researched article has elicited a response from those in the thick of the issue.

Our other two articles are a personal memoir by Harvey Goldberg, relating to a career spent studying the Jews of Libya on his research on Mordechai Ha-Cohen , and an interview with a remarkable woman, Navah Shemesh, whom we can characterize as bat yerushalaim, a daughter of Jerusalem. Our Ladino/Judeo-Spanish stories are by Maor Malul, and Jane Mushabac. And three of our five cover performance and film, while two review books.

We hope you find this new issue stimulating, and we would love to receive your feedback. You can write to us at sephar@sephardichorizons.org.

Happy reading from Judith Roumani, editor
Annette B. Fromm, associate editor
Altan Gabbay, webmaster