The Me'am Lo'ez (מעם לועז), begun by Rabbi Yaakov Culi in 1730, is a commentary to Tanakh written in Ladino. It was subsequently translated to Hebrew and translated from the Hebrew to English in a fairly popular commentary in print. Does anyone know of a modern publishing house who has printed this in/with the original Ladino? When was the last time this was printed in Ladino?
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3HebrewBooks has a few Ladino editions. This one, for example, is from 1864; although Wikipedia says it was first published from 1730.– b aCommented Jun 11, 2012 at 4:13
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1Ladino has been written in Hebrew and also in Latin characters (alphabets). The 1864 version b a's linked to uses Hebrew; I wonder whether any use Latin.– msh210 ♦Commented Jun 11, 2012 at 6:42
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2Beis Eked Sefarim - a bibliography of sefarim printed until 1950 - lists various editions, though the last ones (in Hebrew characters, at least) seem to have been at the end of the 1800s. R. Aryeh Kaplan, in his introduction to Bereishis, mentions an edition of most of Bereishis in Latin characters, done by a Spanish university in the 1960s; whether it was continued, I don't know.– AlexCommented Jun 11, 2012 at 17:16
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1@Alex Any idea what the university is? I can try to track it down...– minhagCommented Jun 12, 2012 at 2:59
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2@minhag: R. Kaplan's introduction is here. He says that it was done by the Ibn Tibbon Institute at the University of Granada. (That said, the Wikipedia article on Meam Loez quotes a review that says that it is full of inaccuracies.)– AlexCommented Jun 12, 2012 at 17:23
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2 Answers
Thanks to the work of some amazing people, all of the Meam Loez on Chumash in (Rashi-script) Judeo-Spanish has finally been made available on Hebrew Books.
Sefer Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra and Bamidbar are taken from the 5582/1822 Livorno edition, described by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (zichron le bracha) as being the closest version to modern Spanish.
The team was unable to locate a copy of this version of Devarim, and so the 1870's Izmir edition was uploaded to Hebrew Books.
Anyone interested in having hard copies of this sefer printed can order them from Judaica on Demand.
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1It seems they only have the title page of Devarim. nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH001790979/NLI Commented Sep 21, 2022 at 8:41
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I thought I was the only one excited about this! ביאנבאנידו אבורדו, @Dr.Shmuel!– יהושע קCommented Sep 21, 2022 at 20:29
The Meam Lo'ez are 17 volumes written in 150 years, I know you mean a Ladino with Hebrew letters Meam Lo'ez, but the last time printed in Ladino with Latin letters were in the 2006 by the National Authority of Ladino at Israel. The book is a recompilation of Selected text from Bereshit with its introduction, glossary and index, here the book Daalet le-Navon.
The cultural magazine Aki-Yerushalayim wrote about the book in Ladino (my English translation):
But since the Ladino began to be written in Latin letters at the beginning of the 20th century, and that already grew 4 generations who do not know the rashi letter, few can only read this book in our days, what is a sin that meam Loez is a mine of knowledge not only from religious point of view, also linguistic, literary and folkloric either.
There are already many years from the work to make a translation of Meam Loez in Latin letters, especially for those who are studying the Ladino and Judeo-Spanish literature. It is true that years ago was take a first test, at the University of Granada, to make a transliteration the Book of Genesis, but this was first cast with a different graphic we use here, any way there are not more copies. A response to the work of making a transliteration that suits the public in Israel (and other countries too), was given on the initiative of a group of friends of the President of the National Authority of Ladino, Mr. Yitzhak Navon, on occasion of his eightieth birthday we decided to honor him, publishing a transliteration in Latin letters, a selection of Meam Loez Bereshit .
Maybe you can get a printed copy if you email the National Authority of Ladino.
