UW builds largest digital library of Sephardic language
The Ladino collection is among the nation’s largest, second to the one housed at Yeshiva University in New York. Among the finds is a rare book of ethics published in Istanbul in the 1740s and a 1916 book of advice to immigrants to the U.S., which among weightier matters carries a useful explanation of how to eat ice-cream cones. (Ice cream, Sephardic Jews had seen before. Ice cream cones, not so much.)
As excitement built among Seattle’s Sephardim, who still use some Ladino words in prayers and everyday speech, several families and a foundation donated money to get a new Sephardic studies program off the ground. It started three years ago, with Naar as its chairman, as part of UW’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.
