eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
The guest of honor at Seattle’s biggest party this December will be an endangered 500-year-old language.
At the second-annual International Ladino Day, hosted at the University of Washington on December 4th, the Judeo-Spanish (or Judezmo) dialect of Sephardic Jews will bask in the spotlight of renewed international interest. Seattle boasts one of America’s largest populations of Jews who trace their ancestry to Spain before the expulsion in 1492. If last year’s vibrant Ladino Day celebration here was any measure, this community is extremely proud of its linguistic and cultural heritage.
Check out the highlight reel from Seattle’s 2013 Ladino Day celebration, which featured heartfelt musical performances, saucy folk sayings, video greetings from dignitaries, and a group narration of how Seattle’s Sephardic Jews got their start:
Molly FitzMorris co-organized last year’s successful inaugural Ladino Day, and is again working with Prof. Devin Naar, Chair of the UW Sephardic Studies Program, to coordinate this year’s bash. A Jewish Studies Graduate Fellow and first-year PhD student in the UW Linguistics Department, she studies the changing language patterns of Seattle’s Sephardic Jews. She also works with “Los Ladineros,” Seattle’s weekly Ladino conversation group, whose feisty musical performance at the first Ladino Day was an emotional highlight of the evening.
I am a direct descendent of the Portuguese Jews who arrived in Amsterdam, Netherlands, at the end of the 16th century and in spite of the holocaust I still have two grandsons bearing my family name since the 15th century in the Bragança area in Portugal (Cortiços).
I am specialized in Portuguese Jewish genealogy, used to be a parnas and president for almost 45 years of the Dutch Sephardi community, published articles and a booklet on these items and last but not least performed in a number of TV programs.
Still today I lecture on the history of the Portuguese Jews in Holland.
Apart from same I am a survivor of the holcaust and one of the few co-plaintiffs in the Demjanjuk – Sobibor trial in Munich, Germany several years ago.
If you need me for anything, please call on me. In this respect I think of lecturing during your meetings somewhere in the world.