Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700–1950

Julia Phillips Cohen and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, eds.

Review by Randall C. Belinfante for Jewish Book Council

Sephardi Lives presents the reader with an outstanding collection of primary source documents portraying a broad spectrum of experience in the lives of the Judeo-Spanish population expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the late 14th and 15th Centuries. In contrast to other documentary histories this compilation focuses not only on the political, the famous, and the infamous, but also on the everyday affairs of the people. It highlights elements as diverse as children’s lessons, diary entries, a woman’s grievances in the face of eviction, and the laments of Jewish conscripts in the Ottoman army. It recounts criticism of women singing on the Sabbath, expressions of hope for the redemption, memories of Holocaust survivors, and pleas for the study of Ladino in Mexico.

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