Is Ladino More Appealing Than Yiddish? Singer Sarah Aroeste Thinks So

by LARISA KLINE

Why is May 2019 different from all other months? It’s Jewish American Heritage Month for one, a period that feels especially important to mark given the rising insecurity coursing through Jewish American life. Because visibility is more important than ever before, Refinery29 brings you our celebration of Jewish American culture. L’chaim!

Chances are, if you know anything about American Jews, you know a Yiddish word or two. Such is the dominance of Ashkenazi Jews, who brought Yiddish with them from Eastern and Central Europe, and infused their culture with America’s (more or less). The same cannot be said for Ladino — a Judeo-Spanish language that also brings with it a history and just as many uniquely specific words you didn’t know you needed until you heard them.

Sarah Aroeste, a Ladino musician who’s doing her part to keep the language alive, describes it as “15th century Castilian Spanish mixed in with bits and pieces of French, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and yes, Hebrew.” Ladino is spoken among the world’s Sephardic Jews, a group that was expelled from Spain in 1492, and settled across the Ottoman Empire (today the Mediterranean and Middle East).

Today, there are pockets of Sephardic communities in the United States — people who fled their home countries for better opportunity — and Ladino phrases and sayings pepper their American English much in the way that Yiddish does. Some common terms, according to the Sephardic Folk Dictionary are bavajadas (foolishness), fregar (take advantage), debaldes (no charge), bendicho manos (blessed hands), and pinti (moody). “For hundreds of years, Ladino was the primary language spoken by Jews throughout the Mediterranean,” says Aroeste, who is from Princeton, NJ. “And yet today, nobody’s even heard of it.”

That’s why Aroeste, whose family hails from North Macedonia and Greece, is doing her part to revive the language. Based in New York, she sings traditional Ladino songs, and writes new ones, often touching on themes of feminism and love, as she did in her 2012 album Gracia. A mother of two, she also focusing on the next generation through children’s literature, an animated series (that appears on YouTube), and a 2016 album called Ora de Despertar. Here, she talks to Refinery29 about the language that was nearly lost, the universality of Ladino music, and how she blends Sephardic Judaism and feminism.

Fuente: refinery29.com