The Story of Ladino, with Nesi Altaras

Please register to attend this free in-person program. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy.  

How did Ladino, the language of Sephardic Jews, develop from its Iberian origins its flowering literary life in the Eastern Mediterranean? Through an interactive workshop, Nesi Altaras, a heritage speaker of Ladino and historian of Sephardic Jews, will introduce the language through its colorful sayings and how he came to learn the language of his grandparents (and maybe you could too!). He will share insights from previous projects on Ladino vocabularies on queerness, on how Sephardic Jews described Ashkenazi Jews, and much more. No background in Ladino or any language it draws from —Hebrew, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Italian, or French—is necessary. Come dip your toe into la lingua muestra.

Nesi Altaras is a PhD candidate in history at Stanford University studying Jews in the late Ottoman Empire and the post-Ottoman world. His work has been published in several journals and popular outlets in English, Turkish, and Ladino. He has been editor of Avlaremoz, a Turkish platform for news and opinion on Jewish affairs. Born and raised in Istanbul, he lives in San Francisco.