Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture

In this pathbreaking book, Matthias B. Lehmann explores Ottoman Sephardic
culture in an era of change through a close study of popularized rabbinic texts
written in Ladino, the vernacular language of the Ottoman Jews. This vernacular
literature, standing at the crossroads of rabbinic elite and popular cultures and of
Hebrew and Ladino discourses, sheds valuable light on the modernization of Sephardic
Jewry in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 19th century. By helping to form a Ladino
reading public and imparting shape to its values, the authors of this literature
negotiated between perpetuating rabbinic tradition and addressing the challenges of
modernity. The book offers close readings of works that examine issues such as
social inequality, exile and diaspora, gender, secularization, and the clash between
scientific and rabbinic knowledge. Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic
Culture will be welcomed by scholars of Sephardic as well as European Jewish
history, culture, and religion.