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NEXTBOOK FEATURE
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The Rise of the Ladino Theater in the Ottoman Empire
Olga Borovaya, professor of cultural studies, Russian State University for the Humanities
Unlike the Yiddish theater, which grew out of folk entertainment, the Ladino theater was an invention of French emissaries who thought they could enlighten Sephardic Jews considered “backward, uneducated, and mainly uncivilized,” says Olga Borovaya. To combat this perception, they imported French plays and translated them into Ladino “to educate, which explains why it was so didactic. They were very concerned about the morals of the Sephardim, so they would rewrite Molière. Those plays were very funny, but they also had a moral message—don't be avaricious, don't be dumb.” As the Colonial era drew to a close and the Young Turk revolution lifted a ban on discussions of Zionism, Biblical texts were transformed into plays in which, for example, “they talk and talk and at the end they sing “Hatikva”. There would be plays where they would say, 'Sephardim don't know about their heritage and they know about French novels. Now they have to learn about Zionism and Palestine.' The point is always to say, 'Don't pretend to be a French Jew, be a Sephardic Jew.'”
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About the Conference
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