Editor’s Note
As readers may see, this is the first issue of our tenth volume, and we have tried to make this an especially interesting volume, as befits the Tenth Anniversary of Sephardic Horizons. First, though, we need to convey the sad news of the very recent passing of Isaac Jack Lévy z”l. We had heard that he was ill, and were hoping that he would nevertheless be able to see his article published. His most original research on Sephardic poets and artists of the Holocaust has several times enriched Sephardic Horizons, for which we were most grateful. Isaac Jack Lévy has been a pioneer with his study of Sephardic poetry of the Holocaust, an anthology which saw two editions, in 1989 and 1999. Born in 1928 in Rhodes, by 1940 his family was living in Seattle, and he served in the U.S. Army from 1949; he was a professor of Hispanic studies at the University of South Carolina, and founder of the American Society of Sephardic Studies. He dedicated most of his research to Sephardic culture and Sephardim in the Holocaust, giving frequent lectures, and recently completing a book which will appear soon with Alabama University Press. The Sephardic world has lost one of its most valuable members.
This Tenth Anniversary issue brings several fascinating articles from loyal contributors. Isaac Jack Lévy z”l writes on the Sephardic artist, humanist, and Turk, Habib Gerez; Marvin J. Heller sends an article on Hebrew printing in Guadalajara, Spain just before the expulsion, Rabbi Marc D. Angel contributes a memoir of Sephardic life in the New World, and Harvey E. Goldberg sends us a fascinating interview with Raffaello Fellah z”l, an activist on behalf of Libyan Jews expelled in 1967.
Our Judeo-Spanish/Ladino section is also enriched with writings by previous contributors: Rachel Amado Bortnick sends a memoir of her two grandfathers, Hernán Rodríguez Fisse shares an article on the good life, and Carlos Yebra López reports on a conference in London. Reviews by contributors new and old (Rochelle Strauss, Vivienne Roumani-Denn, David Navarro, Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, myself) round out this issue. The upcoming numbers of this volume will also celebrate the creativity of previous and new contributors.
Mersi muncho to our webmaster Altan Gabbay, our associate editor Annette Fromm, and all our writers for this issue, as well as to our readers who are the point of everything! Thanks for reading Sephardic Horizons, do keep on reading, and do send us your views! 1
Judith Roumani
Editor, Sephardic Horizons
1 You may email us at sephar@sephardichorizons.org. If you wish, your letters can appear on our Letters page.