An Ode to Salonika: The Ladino Verses of Bouena Sarfatty

Introduction

intrOductiOn Twentieth-Century Salonika and Bouena’s Ladino Coplas Salonika provided Jewish exiles from Spain and Portugal with a beloved home for four and a half centuries.1 The Ottoman rule that began only fourteen years prior to the Expulsion from Spain in 1492 proved conducive to the flowering of a strong, healthy, and productive Jewish community. The reputation of the community was so impressive that by 1553, Samuel Usque coined a biblical term of endearment for the city in his Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, in which he described Salonika as a true mother-city in Judaism.2 For it is established on the very deep foundations of the Law. And it is filled with the choicest plants and most fruitful trees presently known anywhere on the face of our globe. These fruits are divine, because they are watered by an abundant stream of charities. The city’s walls are made of holy deeds of the greatest worth.3 By 1613, two-thirds of the city’s population was Jewish; a Jewish majority was present through the beginning of the twentieth century.4 The exiles strove to organize themselves religiously, economically, and educationally, and eventually built an impressive Talmud Torah and provided extensive welfare to those in need. The newcomers contributed to the development of weaving and dyeing as well as the manufacture of wool, silk, and tobacco. These Jews—whose professions ranged from bankers and merchants to middlemen and storeowners to porters, fishermen, and tobacco workers—found themselves situated between East and West by virtue of being in Salonika. Although exposed to Westernization and Europeanization, they remained strongly connected to the Ottoman world and to their fellow Sephardi Jews for centuries. The nineteenth century in particular brought significant changes, including rather sophisticated rail and shipping connections—and, as a result, a boom for the port of Salonika.5 Europe’s presence increased considerably, as firms and individuals made inroads in industry, fashion, education, and finance.6 Many of these firms employed Jews as maritime, insurance, and tobacco agents.7 Salonika 2 u An Ode to Salonika was considered to be the “most industrially advanced city in the Ottoman Balkans.”8 Visits by luminaries such as Baron de Hirsch resulted in investments of funds as numerous locals and Italians such as the Allatini, Fernandez, and Modiano families followed suit. The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a Parisian-based society founded in 1860 and devoted to Jewish cultural and professional development, established a school for boys in 1873 and for girls in the following year. Private schools were simultaneously founded by the Pintos, Alshehs, and Gategnos—all active members of the community.9 Essentially, the principles of modern education were being transmitted by Westernized Jews. The French viewed the developments that transpired in this “Metropolis of Israel” with great satisfaction,10 for French culture was being advocated and inculcated par excellence.11 It could be said that Salonika at the turn of the century thus lay on the crossroads of two ages as well as of two civilizations. The metropolis of the Southern Balkans acquired a cosmopolitan character and became the main access route for Western capital and ideas to the East . . . as well as major trade center, the most westernized city of the Ottoman Empire. Salonika’s uniqueness lay, foremost, in its predominantly Jewish character at a time when the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating and the Balkan nation states rising in its wake. As European economic penetration intensified, Salonika became the coordinator of European hegemony over the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, European interests never prevailed over the dynamism of the local entrepreneurs. Economic development laid the basis for modernization, for which European education would provide the means.12 Contact with Europe resulted in changes for the city as well as for the Jewish community; some of its members sought to become “local honorary Europeans.” Thus, there were Greek and Jewish merchants who obtained the protection of foreign consuls and essentially served as cultural intermediaries.13 Other developments included the installation of running water in 1898, of electricity by 1899, and—by 1900—the appearance of some fourteen newspapers in print in four different languages. In short, at “the end of the nineteenth century, Jewish Salonika seemed poised for a brilliant future as the capital city of a newly renascent Balkans.”14 Although the twentieth century held great promise for Salonika, one must realize that certain recurring events always meant disaster for the community . The most devastating of these were...