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Moses Ben Barukh Almosnino (c.1518-1580), was a famous Salonican preacher, prolific author, and the earliest known Ladino writer in the Ottoman Empire. He served as the first rabbi of the congregation Lyvyat Hen founded by Gracia Nasi (1559).Aside from the sermons (partly lost), Almosnino’s Hebrew works include responsa (which survived as quotes in the works of his contemporaries), commentaries on the Five Scrolls (Yede Mosheh, 1572), a book on various aspects of the Torah and the liturgy (Tefillah le-Mosheh, 1563 ), supercommentaries on the Torah commentaries of Rashi and …

Samuel Saadi Halevy (Sam Lévy), born in Salonica in 1870, was known to most educated Sephardim in his time as the editor-in-chief of La Epoka (1875–1911) and Le Journal de Salonique (1895–1911), both founded by his father Bezalel Saadi Halevy. A passionate advocate of Ladino as the legitimate language of Eastern Sephardim, Lévy took pride in contributing to its development by publishing La Epoka. He was opposed to Zionism and encouraged Sephardim to become useful members of the societies in which they lived.Lévy was educated in Salonica at the Alliance Israélite Universelle s…

Bezalel Saadi Halevy (Ashkenazi) (1819–1903) was a publisher, journalist, and musician in Salonica . He inherited his press from a long line of printers in his family, the first of whom came to Salonica from Holland in 1731. Halevy published religious and secular texts, including his own poems and songs composed for holidays, weddings, and special occasions. Though his formal education was limited to a few weeks of traditional schooling, Halevy was a passionate supporter of modern …

David Isaac Florentin (1874–1941) was a prominent journalist in Salonica , his birthplace, and a key figure in the Greek Zionist movement. Florentin received a religious education and graduated from an Alliance Israélite Universelle school. He knew several European languages and was a prolific translator of serialized fiction.In 1897, in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair, Florentin together with Moses Aaron Mallah founded a major Ladino periodical, El Avenir (The Future). It continued until 1916, and from 1909 received funding from the World Zionist Organization (WZO). El Avenir bega…

Shaʿare Mizraḥ/Las Puertas de Oriente (The Gates of the Orient) was the first Ladino newspaper  in the Ottoman Empire. It was published in Izmir from 1845 to 1846 by Rafael Uziel ‎(1816-1881)‎, a local merchant of Italian descent.   His first attempt at founding a Ladino periodical failed: La Buena Esperansa  expected to appear in Izmir in 1842, never saw light. According to Uziel, Sha’arei Mizrah had a circulation of one hundred copies. In addition to Izmir, this bi-weekly was distributed in other cities, and its subscritption was advertised in The Jewish Chronicle of London. The paper …

El Jurnal Izraelit (The Israelite Newspaper), published in Istanbul from 1860 to 1871, was the first long-lived Ladino periodical. In 1873, it changed its name to El Nasional , which later became El Telegrafo . El Jurnal was edited by Ezekiel Gabbai. It began as a weekly, later appearing up to three times a week. According to an advertisement in El Lunar , the first Ladino periodical in Salonica, published by Yehuda Nehama, El Jurnal had a bimonthly political supplement called El Trezoro . El Jurnal Izraelit was founded and published by the Meclis Peqidim, the lay council in char…

La Buena Esperansa (The Good Hope) was the name under which the first Ladino newspaper was to be published in Izmir in the summer of 1842. All the evidence suggests, however, that the project never saw light. Information in contemporaneous local and European papers testifies to the existence only of its prospectus, dated May 21, 1842. The goal of La Buena Esperansa was “to elevate the Jewish character by exciting Israelites to the cultivation of the liberal arts and sciences” ( Voice of Jacob, July 8, 1842). It was intended to be a weekly and promised to report commercial news…

Le Journal de Salonique (1895–1911) was the longest-lived French-language Sephardi periodical in the Ottoman Empire. It was founded by Bezalel Saadi Halevy in 1895 and after his retirement was run by his son Daout. Its first editor-in-chief was Vitalis Cohen, who was replaced by Lucien Sciuto. In 1898, this position was assumed by the publisher’s youngest son, Shmuel Saadi Halevy (Sam Saadi Lévy). Until mid-1908, Le Journal was a four-page bi-weekly. From 1908 to 1909, it appeared more often, up to five times per week, and often had a free supplement.The program of Le Journal, published …

Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino, literature was born in the sixteenth century in the Ottoman Empire. The only corpus of texts shared by Castilian and Ladino literature is the romancero (ballad). Iberian exiles brought a significant number of ballads with them to the Ottoman domains, where they were preserved and developed, although not printed until the nineteenth century. The main pattern of their adaptation by Ottoman Jews can be described as “de-Christianization,” that is, the elimination of Christian terms, which was not alw…

La Epoka (1875–1911) was a Ladino newspaper published in Salonica. It was founded by Bezalel Saadi Halevy. In 1898 his son, Samuel Saadi Halevy (Sam Lévy), became its editor-in-chief. The paper started  as a weekly, later became a bi-weekly, and eventually appeared five times per week, ranging from four to eight pages in different periods. It defined itself as a “political, economic and literary” publication and had a French counterpart,  Le Journal de Salonique, also run by members of the Halevy family. Between 1907 and 1908, it had a weekly supplement, La Epoka Literaria. La Epo…

Aleksander Ben Giat (Ghiat) (ca. 1863–1923), was a Sephardi journalist, author, translator, and publisher. He was born in Izmir (Smyrna), where he attended an Alliance Israélite Universelle school. In 1884 he co-founded a short-lived Ladino periodical called La Verdad (The Truth). Over the next few years, he wrote for La Buena Esperansa and El Telegrafo until, in 1897, he founded his own Ladino newspaper, El Meseret (The Joy).In its opening issue, Ben Giat announced that the new paper would be a school for young and old, and emphasized El Meseret's literary character.The paper …

El Meseret (The Joy) was a Ladino newspaper published in Izmir from 1897 to 1922. Aleksander Ben Giat was its editor-in-chief. Until 1900, its owner and director was a Muslim, Mehmet Hulussi. In its first issue, Ben Ghiat expressed his hope that the paper would serve as an interpreter between the Jewish community and the Ottoman authorities. In order to promote this program, El Meseret printed its first page in Turkish for some time. A regular issue had eight pages. The paper was closed by censors between the end of 1899 and mid-May 1900.Initially a weekly, El Meseret later became a dai…

1. Middle East and North AfricaJewish journalism in the Middle East and North Africa began in 1842 with the Ladino weekly La Buena Esperansa in Izmir (Smyrna). Between then and the end of the twentieth century, over eight hundred Jewish newspapers and periodicals were published in the region, many quite short-lived. Published by and about Sephardim and Mizraḥim, they appeared in regional, Jewish, and European languages, in a variety of formats and frequencies, differed great in longevity, and covered a wide range of t…