Editor’s Note
The current issue of Sephardic Horizons presents six articles, a story by Rivka Abiry in Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, and two reviews.
Our articles include an unpublished article by the late Alan Mintz z"l, world authority on S. Y. Agnon, and known among his many friends as a gourmet cook. Sephardim can appreciate both the great writer Agnon (who has also influenced Sephardic fiction), Alan Mintz's subtle scholarship on Jewish themes, and Alan's hobby of cooking for friends and family. Our other articles relate more conventionally to Sephardic culture, since two of them are interviews with experts on the Jews and anusim of Sicily, a little known subject, and the other two relate to Sephardim in the Holocaust. Evelyne Aouate of Palermo, and Susan Kikoler of London, have graciously provided the interviews, and two specialists on Sephardim in the Shoah, Stefania Zezza of Rome, and Isaac Lévy of South Carolina, have contributed scholarly studies. In addition, Annette Fromm of Florida has contributed an interesting anthropological approach to the study of Sephardic women. Thanks also to Rivka Abiry for another delicately written reminiscence, "La Boz de las linguas," and to Annette Fromm for her review, as well as to Altan Gabbay, our webmaster.
With much sorrow, we mark the passing of our long term contributor and co-editor, Ralph Tarica, z"l who over the years has been a stalwart supporter of Sephardic Horizons, since our very first issue ("In Search of the Family name Tarica: A Genealogical Adventure") he has contributed many articles and reviews, and has done a great deal to maintain our high scholarly standards. Chair of the Department of French and Italian at the University of Maryland College Park for many years, an adviser to the Library of Congress on their Ladino collection, translator of the Manual of Judeo-Spanish Language and Culture for English-speaking learners, contributor to La Lettre Sépharade, he has been one of the major contributors to the Sephardic and Ladino/Judeo-Spanish renaissance in Europe and the United States over recent decades. He skillfully edited our most recent issue, earlier this year. I would also add that as a personal friend and unstintingly generous moral supporter, as well as the unofficial leader of the Vijitas de Alhad of the Washington DC area, he is greatly missed by me and his many friends.
We hope you enjoy this new issue,
Judith Roumani
Editor, Sephardic Horizons