Ilan Stavans
By Ilan Stavans
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News Seeking Mameloshn Down South
The following essay is an abbreviated version of the introduction to “Yiddish South of the Border: An Anthology of Latin American Yiddish Writing,” edited by Alan Astro and released by the University of New Mexico Press. In the ever-popular “The Joys of Yiddish” (1968), Leo Rosten offered the following definition for Ladino: “Ladino, or Judesmo,…
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News In a Jewish-Hispanic Fairy Tale, A Witch With a Yiddish Accent
Quick: How many movies with Jewish-Hispanic themes can you name? Okay, time’s up. But don’t feel bad if your list is a bit short. I know something about these matters and could only come up with about six titles, including “The Jewish Gauchos,” based on the literary classic by Alberto Gerchunoff and set in the…
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News The Lessons of 1492
The historian Américo Castro disliked the term “Siglo del Oro”— the Golden Century — when applied to the period of artistic expression and transatlantic colonization that swept the Spanish Empire from 1492 to the dawn of the 17th century. He wondered: what is golden about those hundred years? Sure, the comedias of Lope de Vega,…
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