WHAT

Come join an engaging workshop on the depiction of death and loss in popular media led by World Languages and Culture’s faculty members Judith K. Lang Hilgartner and Mayte de Lama. 

WHERE

Global Commons Media Room 103

WHEN

Three Workshop Times on Monday, Oct. 29 

8:00 to 9:10 a.m. 

9:25 to 10:35 a.m.

10:50 a.m. to noon

WHY

Sugar skulls – but not just sugar skulls. Death and loss are often considered culturally taboo topics, but recently, popular films and TV reveal the grieving process and the afterlife from a thought-provoking, even magical angle. Whether you would like to reflect how to celebrate people who have passed on or you just love telenovelas, come join us for this unique workshop. 

HOW

RSVP by Sunday, Oct. 28 to khilgartner@elon.edu or mdelama@elon.edu

​

Last fall, Elon hosted a celebration for International Ladino Day for the first time, and this year, a group of Elon faculty, students, and members of the community will be participating in another event to spread awareness about the fascinating history, culture, language, food and music of the Sephardim.

Since their expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Sephardic Jews who were sent into exile traveled throughout many other countries through the Ottoman empire, including Turkey, Italy, Greece, Morocco, the Balkans, and many other places. The saying goes that when the Sephardim left their beloved Spain, the only thing they took with them was the language, known commonly as Ladino or Jewish Spanish. 

Ladino or Jewish Spanish is based on the medieval “romance” of the Iberian peninsula and that was then mixed or “karishtreada” with many other languages of their different countries of exile. In Jewish Spanish, you can find a lot of linguistic influence from Hebrew, French, Turkish, Greek, Arabic and other languages.  After the Holocaust, this language and culture became endangered, but its heritage still lives on today in different communities around the world. 

When Elon hosted “Ladino Lives” last year, the Sephardic community worldwide took note. Here is an example of a news article that was published by a Sephardic journal called El Amaneser. The editors of El Amaneser researched Elon’s event and wrote the article in Jewish Spanish. Sephardim all over the world read this and were commenting about it on the Ladino online forums. El Amaneser put Elon on the map as a “haver” (friend) of Sephardic studies! The first line is the most important: “Ladino Lives at 福利亚洲国产精品.” Elon’s event made a lot of people very happy. 

Thanks to several sponsors and collaborators at Elon and from the community, including the World Languages and Literatures department, Jewish Studies, Elon Hillel, Religious studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences, we are expecting to have an amazing event again this fall.

Come and bring a friend to the Isabella Cannon Room at the Center for the Arts at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 29. The event will be conducted in English. Mersi i al vermos!

Heraclitus’ saying goes something like this, “You never step into the same river twice, for you and the river are never the same.”

As I return now to teach at Elon for my second year, I can’t help feel like this phrase describes my experience of both change and continuity. Only a few short months have passed since the courses I taught in spring 2017 came to a close.

Elon’s campus is as beautiful and sunny as ever. The grammatical concepts of the Spanish language haven’t changed, and my love for teaching history, culture, religion and music is as strong as ever. I still find eternal inspiration at the thought that some persistent, curious student (even if a little hesitant and shy) will be empowered by some reading or discussion that we have in class. Some things may never change, but the events of this past summer have indeed changed me, hopefully for the better. 

I spent a large portion of the summer working with a Sephardic Holocaust survivor, Moshe Ha Elion, at his home in Bat Yam, Israel. Originally from Thessaloniki, Greece, Moshe was born in 1925. He writes poetry, theatre, and prose in Jewish Spanish, otherwise known as the Ladino language—the ancestral language of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492.

I have spent a lot of time with Moshe over the years, but this summer, the special task was to translate one of his seminal works in rhyming English verse—more of less iambic heptameter. The words in Ladino of “La Djovenika del Lager” are set to music, and it is Moshe’s dream that this piece in English will become the International Hymn of Shoah Remembrance.

In Israel, the Holocaust is referred to as “Shoah” because the term means “destruction” instead of “sacrifice.” Moshe’s hope is that translating the poem into English will help accomplish the goal of connecting this piece with Israel’s Day of the Shoah (April 11, 2018) as well as International Holocaust Remembrance day (January 27, 2018).

Both the longer poem and the song recount the story of how Moshe’s younger sister, Nina, traveled with their family from Greece to Auschwitz in a repurposed cattle car. The day of their arrival to the camp (lager in Ladino) was the last time Moshe saw Nina and the rest of his family. Nina was sent to join a group of young girls destined for the gas chambers.

The poem does not literally follow Nina’s story; instead it imagines that she survived a few weeks longer. Instead of ending at the gas chambers, the poem projects a journey that more closely resembles Moshe’s own story of survival. Upon disembarking from the cattle car, he too was separated into a group of young men, but instead of being sent immediately to the gas chambers, Moshe was driven to Birkenhau and tasked manual labor.

Although he had many harrowing and unspeakably horrible experiences, miraculously he made it out of seven different camps alive. As I was working with Moshe to translate his poem into English, it became more and more clear to me that not only were we telling the imagined story of his little sister Nina, we were actually recounting Moshe’s lived experience. 

One time, I was struggling with how I would find a rhyme that went with “disinfection,” and we were kibitzing about the order of the lines. Moshe explained to me that Nina’s hair was shaved off, then she was sent to the showers, then she got sprayed with pesticides in order to kill off any lice and fleas that came from the cattle cars.

He made a sound with his mouth like shooting air. His little hands tried to mimic the forward motion of the spray towards the head, the body, and the legs. An image of Raid Ant Killer came across my line of vision. When I was little, my mom kept the insecticide and other chemicals in a locked cabinet.

“It’s poison,” she would tell me, “Don’t touch it.” I had to wonder what was it like to be naked in a line, hit with a shot of chemicals, and then given a striped uniform? I had lost my train of thought, and Moshe suddenly seemed exasperated with his capacity to explain, “Tu no imaginas. No es tu caza. Es el lager. Te dan disinfeksion!” He was right. I couldn’t fathom it. We eventually got the rhyme more of less right:

“She finds herself bewildered, as she’s compelled to action:

she goes to showers naked, and then to disinfection.”

It hit me, the “she” is a symbol for Moshe—and more universally for everyone who suffered in the camps during the Shoah. Even now in translating this poem, Moshe and I are not just giving honor to his experience, or Nina’s, or the countless other victims some of whom survived and the majority who did not—through this translation, we are attempting give back in some small way, a voice to anyone who has been maligned, hated, or abused in the name of racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and discrimination of all kinds.

The Shoah was not just a one-time event that is over. The fight against hatred is current, relevant, and real. The most recent events in Charlottesville reflect this reality once again. I have written about my experience of learning about the events at my alma mater, the University of Virginia, while sitting beside Moshe.

We watched the TV news together, and I marveled at this strange collision of time and space. How can it be that history still repeats itself? What can I do to stop it? What is the solution to so much wonton strife and hatred? The translation of this poem will not solve the problem in and of itself, but I firmly believe that every effort to seek good and flee evil contributes to the reparation of the world.

And for these reasons and others, I come to my classroom this fall changed—hopefully a little more intentional about the taking up my responsibility to lead in my community here in North Carolina. I come perhaps a little more cognizant of the importance of respect and deference towards others no matter their perceived socio-economic background, skin color, religion, ideology, or any other identifying marker. As I told my students the first day of class, when they cross the threshold and the door shuts behind them, they should be assured that in this space they will be treated with respect, keeping in mind that at the end of the day, we are all students at different stages of academic and personal development.

It’s such a privilege to come back to Elon. Some things have changed; some things stay the same. As part of the Elon community, we have a chance to nourish our intellectual spirits, to be challenged, to take risks, to expand our worldview, and ultimately to live for so many others who never had that chance—and for those who still do not.

What do Jazz, Klezmer, and son cubano have in common? This is the question I was asking myself when composer Frank London asked me to translate the songs and lyrics of “Hatuey: Memory of Fire,” an opera co-written by librettist Elise Thoron. The work was originally a poem written in Yiddish by Oscar Pinis. Most recently, Ulises Aquino from Ópera de la Calle suggested that the opera be translated into Spanish for the March 3-5 performances on the streets of Havana.

The opera tells the story of Oscar, a Ukrainian Jew who moved to Cuba to escape the Nazis. While in Havana, he falls in love with a beautiful singer named Kasika who tells him the story of a Taíno chief, Hatuey, who was murdered by Spanish conquistadors. The story of Chief Hatuey’s murder has become famous become symbolic of resistance against injustice. As Oscar learns about the plight of the native Taínos, the narrative interweaves scenes from Hatuey’s life during the Spanish conquest and Oscar’s love story with Kasika.

While versifying the work to London’s phenomenal score, I tried my best to maintain the linguistic traits that came from both Yiddish and Spanish, while also paying homage to the Taíno influences. You will have to use your imagination … or wait for the next performance to hear these lyrics sung, but as you can see there are words of Yiddish, Taíno, and Spanish origin.

¡Ay, blancos! ¿Qué buscan?

¡Ay, vejsen! ¿Qué buscan?

Aquí hay cassava ¡Ay no!

No es qué querían.

Aquí hay guayaba ¡Ay no!

No es lo que buscan. 

¡Oh ney! ¡Ay no! Oh ney! ¡Ay no!

“Vejsen” is the transliteration of the Yiddish word that refers to the “hite” conquistadors. I combined the Spanish exclamation, “ay” with the Yiddish to show the hybridity of the two languages. The linguistic origin of the words, “cassava” is Taíno. Throughout the opera, the code-switching of languages is held together by London’s operatic jazzy-klezmery-cubano fusion. 

“Hatuey: Memory of Fire” is a melting pot of diverse cultures and linguistic traits — just like Cuba itself. One little known aspect of Cuban culture is the Jewish influence. The events of this past weekend’s performance also included a series of tours by Ruth Behar, who discussed the melding of Jewish and Cuban cultures in the region. Behar, born of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic heritage, is a well-known author and anthropologist who finds inspiration for her many novels and publications from her home country. is a link to an article about Behar’s journey self-discoverey in terms of her Cuban Jewish identity. 

Perhaps now the U.S. embargo against Cuba has been lifted, we will see a resurgence in scholarship about Cuba, include Jewish Cuban history. For now, if you aren’t hopping a plane to Havana, you can read about the country’s transformation online. To start, here are two articles about the opera: “Hatuey: Memory of Fire” from , the , and . To see the list of all contributors, check out the press release . 

“Believing and hoping makes life longer” 

This fall Elon will become the only university on the East Coast to celebrate International Ladino Day. The holiday was created to commemorate the culture of the Sephardic Jews as well as their ancestral language, known as Jewish Spanish. 

Since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the sephardim have been exiled all over the world, migrating first to Portugal, Italy and Turkey. Through the expansive Ottoman empire, the Sephardic Jews then made their home throughout Greece and the Balkans, only to be later displaced by the Holocaust. Each place that the sephardim have called home over the centuries has contributed to their unique language and culture. 

Just to give you a sneak preview: if you aren’t famliar with the term “Jewish Spanish,” think of another Jewish language: Yiddish, which is usually mixture of German and Hebrew. In the same way, the Ladino language is a mixture of medieval Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, French and many other languages! 

Please join us Nov. 30 for the event “Ladino Lives at Elon” as we learn about the history, language, culture, music, cuisine, and literature of the Sephardic Jews from the Middle Ages until today. After the event, Sephardic refreshments will be provided.

As a minority language, Ladino deserves to be protected and celebrated. The cause to enliven Sephardic studies at Elon has been met with enthusiasm by several sponsors and collaborators at Elon and from the community, including the World Languages and Literatures department, Jewish Studies, Elon Hillel, Religious studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences. 

Come and bring a friend to the Isabella Cannon Room at the Center for the Arts at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 30. The event will be conducted in English. Mersi i al vermos! 

Now six years later, I’ll never forget that last question at the conclusion of my senior seminar presentation. For one, it is honestly the only question I can remember because I have probably blocked the rest out, and for two, Professor Namaste’s question was my favorite because I most definitely knew the answer: my color choice of red symbolized the main color of the Spanish flag. Obvious, color choice, right? Oh, the memories. 

Since that day, I have often thought back to my senior seminar experience with Spanish Professor Mina Garcia because despite the challanges it entailed, this capstone experience successfully propelled me into the academic career that I still pursue today. I fondly remember fall 2009, and in particular, my research paper “De la boca de los niños: el martirio del Santo Niño de la Guardia y la expulsión de los judíos de España.” This project was my first step forward into the field of Hispanic studies at the graduate level. 

As I watch the leaves turn colors on Elon’s campus this fall, it reminds me that returning to Elon to teach has really brought me full-circle. Last Friday, Professor Garcia invited me to attend the senior seminar class that she is currently teaching. All the good things about senior sem are still going strong. The students’ research interests were fascinating; their topics range from literature to linguistics — from psychology to politics. We discussed how good ideas often come from engaging in interdisciplinary conversations, from peer review, and from close relationships with academic mentors. 

I am looking forward to hearing some great senior seminar presentations once again. It is awesome to see students use the Spanish language to explore their interests. I am so thankful for my experiences at Elon as an undergrad and only have one small word of advice for the current senior sem students: don’t choose red as your powerpoint background (no matter how much you love the Spanish flag) because your font won’t show up on the screen! 

Lang Hilgartner recently joined the department of World Languages and Cultures as a Spanish language instructor and is currently finishing her doctoral degree at the University of Virginia. Thanks to the flexibility and support of her Elon students, Lang Hilgartner returned to Charlottesville,  Virginia, this past week to participate in the Gerszten Family Foundation event series hosted by the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Department and the Jewish Studies program at UVa.

ProfessorJosé Kozer, renowned poet and 2013 recipient of the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, came Sept. 17-20 to the University of Virginia and gave a poetry and creative writing workshop in addition to a fascinating lecture entitled, “Towards a Biography of the very Necessity of Beauty.” Kozer, born in Cuba in 1940 into an Ashkenazi Jewish family, moved to the United States at the age of twenty after the Cuban Revolution. Kozer served in the department of Hispanic Studies at Queens College in New York for more than thirty years. He is a very prolific poet, who since 2002 has written at minimum one poem day and has published over sixty collections of poetry and prose. It was an honor and privilege to host Kozer and his wife, Guadalupe, for their four-day stay at UVa, but who knows, but perhaps Elon will get a chance at a visit before too long?

During the lecture, Lang Hilgartner performed her own English translation of his poetry after Kozer read the original versions in a poetic give-and-take of Spanish and English. One audience member described the effect of the two languages as less of a stark juxtaposition and more as a symbiotic conversation. To find out more about José Kozer’s complex and haunting poetry, check out this of a forthcoming documentary entitled, “Me, Japanese” by Magdiel Aspillaga.