These verses provide an amazing entrée into the history and fate of a community [Salonika] destroyed during the Holocaust.1/28/14
― Jerusalem Post
This fine volume provides indispensable insights into the lives of the Jews of Salonika in the years before and during the Holocaust, both in the words of Bouena Sarfatty herself and in the author’s presentation.
― Sephardic Horizons
In small doses of verse, Sarfatty thoroughly, yet succinctly, explains, describes and preserves Salonikan and Sephardic life. In each section, Melammed provides a thorough historical background and perspective for the coplas. This is an excellent book for the student of Sephardic Jewry.
― AJL Reviews
Melammed’s meticulous translation of Sarfatty’s coplas, which express both the tonality and cultural distinctiveness of Sephardi Jewish life, is a genuine contribution to scholarship and deserves praise.September 2013
― H-Judaic
What a pleasure and joy for us, the Ladino speakers, to have gained another marvelous book where we read memories written in Ladino about Salonika . . . It is also a joy for those who know English and are interested in Sephardi culture and history . . . In whatever language, this is a book that will make you smile and cry, reminisce and think and learn a great deal.
― eSefarad
[T]hose wanting insight into the world of Greek Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust are likely to find this unique work well worth their time.
― Jewish Book Council
The appeal of Levine Melammed’s work is not limited to a small group of specialists. The book is accessible to a much wider public, including laypersons and student readers who may not be familiar with the history of the period or its pertinent poetic genres. . . . Melammed’s new book will certainly become a classic reference handbook to be cited by historians, philologists and social anthropologists.
― Nashim
An important contribution to Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) studies as well as to the history of Greek Jews during Holocaust. Melammed has done her best to present Bouena’s impressive text.
— Shmuel Refael ― Bar-Ilan University
Book Description
Winner, 2014 Canadian Jewish Book Awards, biography/memoir category
From the Author
Renée Levine Melammed is Dean of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and author of Heretics or Daughters of Israel: The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile and A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective. She is academic editor of Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, published by IUP, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
About the Author
Renée Levine Melammed is Dean of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and author of Heretics or Daughters of Israel: The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile and A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective. She is academic editor of Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, published by IUP, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
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