>> Susan Shadl: Thank you all for being here. It's wonderful to see a crowded room. Welcome to Mumford Room here at the Library of Congress for "Ladino songs and the Sephardic Diaspora, a Musical and Linguistic Journey". My name is Susan Shadl, and I am the chief of the Hispanic division. I want to start by welcoming our performers, Sarah Aroeste, Ellie Ganelin, and Shai Bachar. Thank you for sharing your culture, talent, and knowledge with us today. I think we're all going to learn a lot. I had the pleasure of coordinating this event with the Greek Chamber Music Project, which Ellie is involved with. The Udish Kudavant [phonetic] Project, which we're going to hear about in a second from Gail Prensky, who is behind me here joining me on the stage. The General and International Collections Directorate, which includes a lot of different reading rooms in our library, and the Bibliographic Access Directorate, which gives us a lot of material in our libraries. And of course, special events and our sound crew. So, thank all of them for bringing this together here today. I do want to acknowledge a few affiliated individuals and talk a little bit about the connection of what we will experience on this stage and what you see on the table in the back of the room. Those individuals are Gail Prensky, who is going to talk to you in a moment about some very exciting projects that bring people and their voices together around experiences that they work through together, and she'll tell you more. I'd also like to thank Gail Shirazi. Some of you know her, I think. Nishao Wingfield [phonetic] and Danny Thurber [phonetic] for bringing us altogether in this space. And I am equally grateful, especially grateful to Doctor Anne Brenner of the Hebraic section and the African and Middle East division, who prepared a wonderful display of Ladino material and Hebraic materials that mark the journey of people or the migration, is a better term, of people through the Mediterranean after the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust. So, I hope you will take some time to look at that display and to spend a little time with the program that Doctor Brenner has put together for you in reference to those materials. Thank everyone for being here. I want to thank everyone who is sharing information with us for their knowledge, and I'm excited to stop talking. You can see I'm a little bit nervous, and to hear more from our performers, Sarah, Ellie, and Shai, and also to hear a little bit about the work that Gail Prensky is doing with music and performance. So, thank you. Gail? [ Applause ] >> Gail Prensky: Hi. I'm so happy to see you all here. We've been working on this nearly a year, I think, and it's wonderful to see this room filled. I want to thank you, Susan, and the Library of Congress. Michelle, a special shout out to you for helping us. And I just want to spent just a couple of minutes, because I know that we're anxious to hear this program. The [inaudible] Kulturbund project explores issues of oppression through music and art, and our mission is to connect people through common experiences, inspire people to use culture in response to persecution, and encourage freedom of culture and expression. And what you are about to see is so relevant to our mission, and we're so proud to be a presenter. And I want to thank, again, the Greek Chamber Music Project for involving us. We have a number of initiatives. We do education programs. We have a number of different performing arts projects that we're working on and film projects that take us around the world. We just were in South Sudan in the summer, and it's very exciting to bring the story of the Kulturbund and our mission to people in Juba, South Sudan, which is the newest country in the world. And they knew very little about Jews, but also about the power of music and art that they used in response to oppression during the Nazi era. I invite you all in the back room -- the back of the room, there are cards that tell you more about the project and will easily take you to our website. We have stories of over 45 artists from 25 countries around the world who connect to the story of the Kulturbund and their issues. So, without further ado, I welcome the performers to lead you through this beautiful journey, remembering the Jews of Greece. [ Applause ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Sarah Aroeste: Thank you. Arvoles, the song I just sang, is one that is steeped in medieval Spanish imagery. It may have originally alluded to a soldier bidding his beloved farewell as he was going off to war and knew that he would not be returning home. Fast forward to World War II, when a group of Jews was in Auschwitz, the very famous [Ladino spoken], a chorus made up of Jews from Salonika, Greece. And they resurrected and reinterpreted this song so that no longer was it a love song between a boy and a girl, but rather that of a people and their homeland. They took the last verse and reinterpreted it to give it more of a redemptive ending. [ Ladino spoken ] Come and you will see, we will see together with the love that we share. One day we will be reunited. In many ways, this song has become an anthem for Sephardic Jews. Those Jews, like myself, who trace their ancestry back to medieval Iberia. This song represents the enduring pull the Sephardic Jews feel towards our Hispanic past. No matter where our migrations have taken us around the globe, this unique Spanish-Jewish history will always unite and bind us together. I'm singing in Ladino. I always have to ask, who here knows Ladino? Okay. Great. We actually have a few people. That's wonderful. It is the beloved language of my ancestors, also known as Judeo-Spanish or Judesmo. And it was the first language of my grandfather who came to America in the early 20th Century from the Ottoman Empire. Now, this handsome gentleman on the right is my grandfather. This picture was taken in 1911 in Monistere [phonetic], which is now in present day north Macedonia. But back then, it was considered upper Greece, lower Yugoslavia. My grandfather was getting all dressed up to see the Pasha, the governor who was coming through town. Now, my grandfather always said that he was a proud, Sephardic Jew from Greece, but that he was a Turk, and that he spoke Spaniol. Now this was somewhat confusing to a little girl growing up in suburban New Jersey. [Laughter] So, if you too are wondering how Spaniol or Ladino, the language of Sephardic Jews, came to be spoken in Monistere and throughout the Ottoman Empire, here's a little background to set the stage for what you'll hear next. >> Ellie Falaris Ganelin: In 1492, Columbus -- [Inaudible]. That's right. But also, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain decreed that all Jews either had to convert to Catholicism or leave. Those who decided to flee, including Sarah's own family, spread out across the Mediterranean and north Africa. These Sephardic Jews, these Jews from Spain and Iberian Peninsula, were welcomed by the Sultan and Ottoman Empire, and so the majority went east. They took the Spanish they had been speaking back in Spain, and along the way, combined it with bits and pieces of the languages from the countries they passed through or settled in. Ladino is a form of 15th Century Spanish, but you'll also hear words of French, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic. It's really a beautiful pan-Mediterranean language that sadly few have heard of today. The Holocaust demolished the centers of Sephardic life and the people who lived this culture. The world's largest population of Sephardic Jews lived in Salonika, also known as Saloniki or Thessaloniki. It was widely considered the Jerusalem of the Balkans. Also, it's a city by many names, because it was home to many groups of people, the crossroads of different cultures and religions. It's also my dad's hometown, which was got me interested in learning about the Sephardic communities there. >> Sarah Aroeste: Hello, Ellie's father. [Laughter] >> Ellie Falaris Ganelin: The city eventually became a part of modern-day Greece, and along the way, forgot its Jewish past for many years. But the Sephardic experience of those throughout -- from throughout the Ottoman Empire is one rich in song and spirit. So, today we celebrate that rich tapestry while also paying tribute to those who perished during World War II. So, to kick off the program, here is a traditional song, [Ladino spoken], about finding our fate in the stars. We might not understand our destiny yet, but if we look to the heavens, in time we will. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Sarah Aroeste: For centuries after they left the Iberian Peninsula, Sephardic Jews built meaningful communities alongside their neighbors. This would come to an end, however, leading up to World War II. The major Sephardic population centers were obliterated. The great city of Salonika in particular lost 94% of its Jewish population. However, the story I want to share is one of survival. There was one synagogue that was left standing while the city was raised. The Nazis used this synagogue as a Red Cross shelter, so it remained intact. Now, I grew up hearing about this synagogue because of the name on the façade. For those of you who can read Hebrew, you can see that it was built by a Yitzhak Aroeste, Aroeste being my family name, and it was built with the help of the community from Monistere, where my grandfather was born. And while Aroeste was a common name in the whole region, we were all very close knit as friends and family. And this image of this synagogue has always been the source of my creative inspiration, just knowing that my Sephardic family name survived on the façade of this synagogue while so much else was destroyed. We still stood, and we are still standing today. So, with that, my next song, [Ladino spoken], the iconic dark-haired girl is one that I actually wrote to explore the powerful connection with my Sephardic family. This song is about the girl who has been kicked out of Spain and has been wandering the Earth ever since just to find her way home. She just wants to hold onto the voice of her ancestors, and by listening to them, she just yearns to understand from where she comes. So, while I sing this song, you'll be seeing a remarkable video on these screens of my own grandparents while they are honeymooning in the Balkans in the 1930s. So, while my grandparents returned safely to American soil, the rest of my family featured in this silent black and white footage all perished in the Holocaust soon after. So, this song is for them. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Applause ] Thank you. >> Ellie Falaris Ganelin: We're fortunate today to have a testimony of Elias [phonetic], a Holocaust survivor, thanks to the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale. The person you'll see in the video managed to escape from Greece and safely end up in America. And his whole story is incredible. After that, I will play a short solo flute piece by a Sephardic composer, Daniel Akiva [phonetic]. It's a contiga [phonetic] or a love song called [Ladino spoken], and it's rooted in the sounds of the Ottoman Empire. >> I was born in Salonika, Greece on March 30, 1932. That's -- I was eight years old at the time that Greece entered the war against the Italians, subsequently against the Germans. And of course, very shortly after the beginning of the war, in April of 1941, the Germans occupied Greece. And what happened after was more or less history with the persecutions against the Jews subsequently and everything else. We were saved by a miracle from the deportations there in Salonika, and by we, I mean my mother, my brother, and myself. Very unfortunately my father was deported and did not come back. My uncles, my mother's brothers, were able to work through the Spanish embassy in Athens. They -- my mother's family was Spanish. There were a lot of Jews in Greece that were not Greek citizens. Quite a number of them were Spanish citizens, quite a number of them were Italian citizens, some British, some Portuguese. My father's family was Greek. So, my mother's brothers were able to intervene through the Spanish government, in fact. And it was agreed between the Spaniards and the Germans that my mother, my brother, and myself would be spared if the Spaniards would give us a visa to go to Spain, which eventually happened. And that is how we were saved. The Germans picked up all the remaining Jews. They went to pick up the remaining people all the way from where they had stopped. And where they had stopped was one street downtown from our house to the end of the ghetto. So, my mother woke up, saw a policeman in the morning, and asked the policeman, was there another deportation last night? And the man said, yes, there was, so she said, what area did they pick up? And the answer was they picked up the entire remaining area, so this is how I lost my father. We didn't see him since then. We subsequently learned that he was among the first to go to the crematory once the train landed. [ Music ] [ Applause ] [ Ladino Spoken ] >> Sarah Aroeste: Sleep, sleep beautiful one, sleep without worry or sorrow, even in times of expulsion and migration, parents still needed to find ways to comfort their children. Life had to continue even in the most trying of times. In this traditional lullaby, we think of the children then and now, and all the parents who've watched over them with deep love and pain just trying to protect them while they sleep. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Sarah Aroeste: So, I want to tell you about someone who I admire greatly, and I probably wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for her, the great Doña Gracia Nasi. >> Yes. >> Sarah Aroeste: Great, some people know about her. She is a remarkable woman. If you are not familiar with her, that's really a tragedy that more people don't know about her. For a period of time, she was not only the richest woman, she was the richest person in all of Renaissance Europe. She was born in 1510 in Portugal to a converso family, one that had converted to Christianity to avoid the inquisition but kept their Judaism all along. She was widowed at a very young age, and she inherited a great wealth from her husband. And what did she do with it all? Well, kings, emperors, and even popes came to her for money, and she doled it out very wisely in return for securing safe passage for hundreds and hundreds of other Jews trying to leave the Iberian Peninsula. She created an underground network that safely transported these Jews across Europe and on to the Ottoman Empire. So, it is because of her, truly, that so much of Sephardic language and culture has survived today. So, I am indebted to the great Doña Gracia Nasi and to many, many other women and men who have done so much to preserve this beautiful history. So, I wanted to write a gracias, a thank you, to her. So, this is our song, "Gracia". [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] While Sephardic culture has endured expulsions and exterminations in the last 500 plus years, if you've taken in anything so far today, it is that Ladino is still alive. So, I want to share with you some words by the great 11th Century Judao-Spanish poet, Samuel Hanagid, who wrote a four-line poem that I've always loved. It goes like this. In times of great despair, when you feel like you're standing at death's door, strengthen your heart and remember, the lamp still has light before it's extinguished, and the wounded lion still knows how to roar. So, like the lion, Ladino and Sephardic culture, we still have a lot of roar left. So, I wrote a song based on Samuel Hanagid's poetry. It's called [Ladino spoken]. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Singing ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] Thank you. >> Ellie Falaris Ganelin: One of the things I love most about Ladino language is the -- and song really, also is the marriage of so many sounds and rhythms. So, it's appropriate to sing about a wedding, the melding of many cultures that make up Sephardic life. Weddings still continued. Children kept on being born, and life continued to be celebrated. >> Sarah Aroeste: So, in the Sephardic tradition, weddings are meant to be enjoyed by families and crowds, so the only way I can sing this next song is with your help. [ Music ] So, in this traditional song, [Ladino spoken], the stairway of gold that a bride climbs to take her vows. There's only one little problem with this little match, [Ladino spoken]. The bride has no money. [Sound of defeat] So, the family shows up to say, good luck with that. We Sephardim knew how to keep our humor all the while, so in the end the families do all come to see the joy and wish the couple well. And that's where you come in. So, three times in the song, I'm going to sing this chorus a couple of times, and I'm going to ask for your help. It goes like this. [ Music and Singing ] One more time. [ Music and Singing ] Perfect. Let's do this. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] You ready? [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] As we near the end of our program, I want to offer some blessing through a song about the sabbath, Shabbat. It sets the scene of a grandmother teaching the sabbath rituals to her daughter, and then that daughter teaching those same rituals to her daughter. With a house filled with food and family, it's a song about keeping these stories and these traditions alive through the generations. So, no matter what tradition you come from, it's really about passing these beautiful songs and colors and flavors from one generation to the next. And for Jews, much of our tradition goes back to our father, Abraham. So, I'm going to ask you to help me with another song. It is possibly one of the most celebrated songs in the Ladino repertoire. It's sung at every simchah, every happy occasion, every joyous gathering, called Avram Avinu. And it's sort of like the Sephardic, "Hava Nagila". [Laughter] And it will come towards the second half of this next song, and I assume that there are some people in the audience who know this song. Yes. Okay, great. So, you're going to help lead it for everybody else to learn it. Here we go. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Ellie Falaris Ganelin: So, what does the future hold for Ladino today? >> Sarah Aroeste: It lies in our children. It is a reality that due to the Holocaust; no one will ever be born speaking Ladino again as a first language. But that doesn't mean we can't do a lot more to keep this this language and culture alive. We must pass it along to our children. So, Ora de despertar, what you see on my daughters' t-shirts, means time to wake up. And while, for kids our final song, one that I wrote for my own children, is a fun song about the rituals of waking up in the morning, for us adults, it has a much wider meaning. It is time to wake up. We need to tell these stories before it's too late. So, I want to thank you, first, for coming here today during your lunch hour and keeping your eyes awake and open to this beautiful culture of Sephardic Jewry. You are our ambassadors. >> Ellie Falaris Ganelin: Thank y'all for being here, and also thank you so much to the Library of Congress for hosting us. It's a real pleasure to be performing here. I want to also thank the [inaudible] Kulturbund Project for co-presenting this with us. That's been a real treat working together. We'll be, tomorrow, performing at the United Church in Foggy Bottom at 7:00 o'clock. So, if you want to come again, please come, and invite all your friends. And on Sunday afternoon we'll be in Philadelphia, so if you have people there that you know, you should tell them about that show as well. You can find out more in the back, we have some brochures. Come say, hi, to us. We want to introduce ourselves. My name is Ellie Falaris Ganelin, with the Greek Chamber Music Project. And on piano, we have Shai Bachar. [ Applause ] And of course, our vocalist, Sarah Aroeste. [ Applause ] >> Sarah Aroeste: Okay. So, here we go. It's very, very simple. Will you play the melody for us, Shai? [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] And we'll be very, very clear when to sing along with me. Thank you again for being here, muchas gracias. [ Applause ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] And one more time. [ Music and Singing ] [ Applause ]