Come experience the magic of Jewish Spanish and Sephardic Culture!
“Kreer i esperar es la vida alargar”
“Believing and hoping makes life longer”
This fall Elon will become the only university on the East Coast to celebrate International Ladino Day. The holiday was created to commemorate the culture of the Sephardic Jews as well as their ancestral language, known as Jewish Spanish.
Since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the sephardim have been exiled all over the world, migrating first to Portugal, Italy and Turkey. Through the expansive Ottoman empire, the Sephardic Jews then made their home throughout Greece and the Balkans, only to be later displaced by the Holocaust. Each place that the sephardim have called home over the centuries has contributed to their unique language and culture.
Just to give you a sneak preview: if you aren’t famliar with the term “Jewish Spanish,” think of another Jewish language: Yiddish, which is usually mixture of German and Hebrew. In the same way, the Ladino language is a mixture of medieval Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, French and many other languages!
Please join us Nov. 30 for the event “Ladino Lives at Elon” as we learn about the history, language, culture, music, cuisine, and literature of the Sephardic Jews from the Middle Ages until today. After the event, Sephardic refreshments will be provided.
As a minority language, Ladino deserves to be protected and celebrated. The cause to enliven Sephardic studies at Elon has been met with enthusiasm by several sponsors and collaborators at Elon and from the community, including the World Languages and Literatures department, Jewish Studies, Elon Hillel, Religious studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences.
Come and bring a friend to the Isabella Cannon Room at the Center for the Arts at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 30. The event will be conducted in English. Mersi i al vermos!