Introduction

It hardly seems necessary to insist on the crucial importance of the Judeo-Spanish ballad tradition to the study of both Pan-Hispanic and Pan-European balladry. The present-day Spanish-speaking Sephardim of Morocco, the Balkans, and the Near East are the descendants of Jews exiled from Spain at the end of the Middle Ages (in 1492). Their archaic, highly conservative ballad repertoires preserve many features of the Spanish ballad tradition as it existed at the time of their exile from the Iberian Peninsula. Numerous narrative types dating back to medieval times have thus survived among the Sephardic Jews, while they have, in many cases, disappeared from all other branches of the Hispanic ballad tradition. A thorough exploration of the Judeo-Spanish ballad corpus is, then, essential to the task of filling the rather substantial gaps that still exist in our knowledge of late medieval and sixteenth-century Spanish balladry. The Sephardic tradition is also, of course, crucially important to comparative studies of the various other modern branches of Pan-Hispanic balladry: the Spanish, Hispano-American, Portuguese, and Catalan traditions. At the same time, Judeo-Spanish narrative poetry, of all the various Hispanic sub-traditions, is also one of the most significant for comparative Pan-European ballad studies. Because of its conservatism, Sephardic balladry preserves a number of thematic correspondences to other European ballad traditions which are no longer in evidence in most other geographic branches of the Hispanic Romancero. Judeo-Spanish balladry can, then, frequently provide clues to thematic relationships on a Pan-European, as well as on a Pan-Hispanic, scale.^[1]

Besides its important conservatism, as an archaic lateral tradition, another previously neglected aspect of the Judeo-Spanish ballad should also be taken into account. This is its eclectic character, its absorption of narrative themes and stylistic features borrowed from the popular poetry of the peoples among whom the Sephardim lived after their exile from Spain: namely from Greek,

[1] See Samuel G. Armistead, "The Importance of Hispanic Balladry to International Ballad Research," 3. Arbeitstagung über Fragen des Typenindex der europäischen Volksballaden, ed. Rolf W. Brednich et al. (Berlin: Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung, 1970), pp. 48–52; Idem, "Judeo-Spanish and Pan-European Balladry," JVF, 24 (1979), 127–138; and a number of chapters in our The Judeo-Spanish Ballad Chapbooks of Yacob Abraham Yoná (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1971).

Turkish, and Arabic.^[2] Although the survival of medieval text-types constitutes one of the important facets of the Sephardic tradition, it should not impede the recognition of other characteristics of Judeo-Spanish balladry. In a fundamental review of recent scholarship, Diego Catalán has pointed out important innovative features coexisting with archaic elements, particularly in Eastern Mediterranean Sephardic balladry.^[3] With the publication of Paul Bénichou's pathfinding Creación poética en el romancero tradicional (Madrid: Gredos, 1968)—based in many cases on Judeo-Spanish evidence—the Sephardic romancero emerges also as essential to the study of creativity in Hispanic traditional poetry.^[4]

Of all the widely separated areas of the twentieth-century Sephardic diaspora, none has been more explored and none has yielded a greater harvest of Judeo-Spanish folk-poetry than the United States. Israel,^[5] Spain,^[6] France,^[7]

[2] On this problem, see especially S. G. Armistead and J. H. Silverman, "Exclamaciones turcas y otros rasgos orientales en el romancero judeoespañol," Sef, 30 (1970), 177–193.

[3] "Memoria e invención en el Romancero de tradición oral," RPh, 24 (1970–71), 1–25, 441–463.

[4] See, for example, the studies by Diego Catalán, Suzanne Petersen, Antonio Sánchez Romeralo, Braulio do Nascimento, Giuseppe Di Stefano, and Paul Bénichou in El Romancero en la tradición oral moderna: ler Coloquio internacional, ed. D. Catalán, S. G. Armistead, and A. Sánchez Romeralo (Madrid: C.S.M.P., 1973), pp. 151–301.

[5] For Israel, the largest collection is that of Israel J. Katz, formed in 1959–1961 and 1971: some 250 texts collected from both Eastern and Moroccan informants. Of this collection, some 80 texts are not "diasporic, " but are from Sabra informants, native to the Old City of Jerusalem. The rest of the collection consists of some 50 texts from Moroccan informants resident in Israel; and 120 from Eastern immigrants. In the summer of 1978, we collected some 205 texts during two weeks of intensive fieldwork (19 Sabra, 89 Eastern, and 97 Moroccan texts). See our publications, "Field Notes on a Ballad Expedition to Israel," Shevet va'Am ), 4(9) (1980), and "The Judeo-Spanish Romancero in Israel," La Corónica, 7:2 (Spring 1979), 105–106; reproduced in Echoes (Jerusalem), no. 9 (October 1979), 12–14. Most, if not all, of Isaac Levy's published collection (93 romances ) was formed in Israel (Chants judéo-espagnols, 4 vols., London: Fédération Séphardite Mondiale, 1959, and Jerusalem: Édition de l'auteur, 1970–1973). Five of Levy's published texts are identified as being from Jerusalem (i.e., Sabra versions); 8 are from the Moroccan tradition. (Note our reviews: NRFH, 14 [1960], 345–349; Sef, 31 [1971], 462–464; ESef, 1 [1978], 247–248.) We do not know the extent of his unedited ballad recordings. Moshe Attias's fine Romancero sefaradí: Romances y cantes populares en judeo-español (Jerusalem: Instituto Ben-Zewi, 1956; 2d ed., 1961)—76 romance texts—is based on versions provided by four informants (two from Salónica and two from Larissa) resident in Israel (see p. 331). Oro A. Librowicz collected 14 Moroccan ballads at Migdal Ha-Emek (Israel). Florette M. Rechnitz has also collected Moroccan ballads in Israel ("Tres romances de Tánger," ESef, 1 [1978], 121–128; with musicological transcriptions and commentary by Israel J. Katz, pp. 129–131) and Reginetta Haboucha has formed a collection of 35 Eastern texts (12 of which are from Sabra informants), representing 13 text-types ("Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Israel," El Romancero hoy: Nuevas fronteras, ed. Antonio Sánchez Romeralo, S. G. Armistead, and Diego Catalán, Madrid: C.S.M.P., 1979). As of now we know of some 676 ballad texts collected in Israel (338 from Eastern immigrants; 116 Sabra texts; 172 from Moroccan immigrants).

Batya Maoz is also collecting romances from Eastern informants in Israel; see Sîrê^[*]'am sefaradiyîm^[*]sel^[*] yehûdê^[*]'arçôt^[*]ha-Balkan, M.A. thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1976. Formore on the ballad tradition of Israel, see our article, "Judeo-Spanish Ballads in a MS. by Salomon Israel Cherezli," Studies in Honor of M. J. Benardete, ed. Izaak A. Langnas and Barton Sholod (New York: Las Américas, 1965), pp. 367–387 (edited now, with extensive additional commentary, in Tres calas en el romancero sefardí (Rodas, Jerusalén, Estados Unidos ) Madrid: Castalia, 1979).

England,^[8] Holland,^[9] Belgium,^[10] Canada,^[11] Cuba,^[12] Mexico,^[13] Venezuela,^[14] Uruguay,^[15] Argentina, Paraguay,^[16] Rhodesia, and South Africa,^[17] all have Sephardic immigrant communities of relatively recent origin, but none has been explored in such depth or by so many ballad fieldworkers as those of the

[6] A substantial portion (64 texts) of Oro Anahory Librowicz's Moroccan collection was recorded in Málaga and Marbella. She has also done some recording in Madrid (36 texts). See her "Florilegio de romances sefardíes de la diáspora" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1974); revised as Florilegio de romances sefardíes de la diáspora (Una colección malagueña ) (Madrid: C.S.M.P., 1980). Before undertaking our Moroccan fieldwork in 1962, we collected a few ballads from Tetuán informants in Madrid. More work doubtless remains to be done in the Madrid community; productive collecting could also be carried out in Barcelona and perhaps in Seville. On Sephardic communities in Spain, see Haim Vidal Sephiha's excellent book, L'Agonie des judéoespagnols (Paris: Editions Entente, 1977), pp. 86–87.

[7] Cf. Martine Cohen, Recueil, edition et étude de textes enregistrés auprés de judéo-hispanophones originaires de Turquie et de Grèce à Paris en 1972, "Mémoire," Université de Paris IV: Institut d'Etudes Hispaniques, Paris, 1972–1973, which includes four ballad texts representing five text-types. A systematic ballad survey of French communities would probably yield interesting results. Cf. Sephiha, L'Agonie, pp. 88–92. For a recent report, see Miriam Zehavi, "North African Jews in France and Israel," Challenge (Jerusalem), 3:9 (July 1979), 4–5.

[8] Except for an interesting, still unedited interview of a Salonikan informant conducted for us by Margaret Chaplin, there has been no collecting of Judeo-Spanish ballads in England to our knowledge. On the diverse Sephardic communities of London, see Issachar Ben-Ami, "Death, Burial and Mourning Customs among Sephardic Jews in London," Studies in the Cultural Life of the Jews in England: Folklore Research Center Studies, 5 (Jerusalem, 1975), 11–36; also Albert Hyamson, The Sephardim of England (London: Methuen, 1951), pp. 403–415; Sephiha, L'Agonie, pp. 85–86.

[9] There is apparently a small community of recent immigrants in Holland. See Chanah Milner and Paul Storm, Sefardische liederen en balladen (Romanzas ) (The Hague: Albersen, 1974), p. 114. Concerning this collection, note our critical review (with Israel J. Katz) in Musica Judaica (New York), 2:1 (1977–78), 95–99. All of the texts included in Milner—Storm are secondhand and none was recorded in Holland. On remnants of an early (seventeenth-century) Hispano-Judaic ballad tradition in Amsterdam, see our article, "El Romancero entre los sefardíes de Holanda," Etudes  . . . offertes à Jules Horrent (Liège, 1980), pp. 535–541. For an overview of Sephardic Jewry in Amsterdam, see J. A. Van Praag, Los sefarditas de Amsterdam y sus actividades (Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1967).

[10] On the Sephardic community in Belgium, see Albert Doppagne, "Le Judéo-espagnol en Belgique," XI Congreso Internacional de Lingüística y Filología Románicas: Actas, 4, ed. Antonio Quilis (Madrid: RFE, Anejo 86, 1968), 2141–2144; also Sephiha, L'Agonie, p. 85. To our knowledge, no ballad fieldwork has been done.

[11] Oro A. Librowicz has collected a few Moroccan romances (8 texts) in Montreal, but much work remains to be done, especially in the large Toronto Moroccan community. See Sephiha, L'Agonie, p. 94.

[12] There was a large Eastern Sephardic community in Cuba; many of these people have immigrated to the United States and to Spanish America. For interviews with two Turkish informants in Havana, carried out by Roberto Esquenazi Mayo, April 7 and 8, 1937 (which yielded four ballads, embodying six text-types), see S. G. Armistead et al., El romancero judeo-español enel Archivo Menéndez Pidal, 3 vols. (Madrid: C.S.M.P., 1978), III, 147 (subsequently cited as CMP).

United States (and many have not been explored at all). Only the multisecular Sephardic homelands of the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa have produced larger collections of ballads than those brought together in the United States.^[18]

[13] No interviews with Sephardic informants in the large Mexico City community have so far yielded ballads. Cf. Sephiha, L'Agonie, p. 95.

[14] Oro A. Librowicz has collected 102 Moroccan ballad texts in Caracas. More work could undoubtedly be done there.

[15] Mónica E. Hollander has thoroughly explored the Montevideo community. See her "Reliquias del romancero judeo-español de Oriente" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1978). The texts included in Jacobo Politi and Daniel Aljanati, Selección de romanzas y poesía litúrgica sefarditas (Montevideo: Comunidad Israelita Sefardí, 1974), are all secondhand, being reproductions from publications of Isaac Levy.

[16] Ismael Moya's rich, but poorly edited, Romancero: Estudios sobre materiales de la colección defolklore, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Universidad, 1941), includes 5 romances provided by Sephardic informants in Buenos Aires (II, 255–259). Most of the texts in Paul Bénichou's splendid Romancero judeo-español de Marruecos (Madrid: Castalia, 1968), originally collected in the early 1940s, were provided by Moroccan informants in Buenos Aires (see p. 14). Recently Eleonora A. [Noga] Alberti has published versions of La vuelta del marido (í ) and Landarico, collected from Eastern informants in Buenos Aires and Asunción (Paraguay). See her "Romances tradicionales en Latinoamérica: Algunos ejemplos sefaradíes y criollos," Comunidades judías de Latinoamérica (1973–1975) (Buenos Aires: Comité Judío Americano, Instituto de Ralaciones Humanas, 1975), pp. 252–269.

[17] No ballads have, to our knowledge, been collected in the African settlements. On Sephardic immigration to Rhodesia and South Africa, mostly from the Island of Rhodes, see Marc D. Angel, The Jews of Rhodes: The History of a Sephardic Community (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1978), pp. 146, 182; also Reuben Kashani, "Sephardi Community in Capetown, South Africa," Challenge (Jerusalem), 3:12 (October 1979), 12.

[18] We know of the existence of some 1,600 ballad texts collected in situ in the Eastern communities (counting some 100 Sabra versions recorded in Israel by I. J. Katz, ourselves, and others; but excluding texts provided by Eastern immigrants to Israel); to our knowledge, some 2,363 texts have been collected in Morocco; as contrasted with some 920 Eastern and 56 Moroccan texts collected in the United States and 510 from recent immigrants to Israel (338 Eastern; 172 Moroccan). Such statistics, however, are approximate and, being of necessity incomplete, must be seen as having only doubtful value. We do not know, for example, the statistics of the Moroccan collections of Manuel Alvar, Tomas García Figueras (now housed in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid), and Henrietta Yurchenko. On these collections, see M. Alvar, Poesía tradicional de los judíos españoles (Mexico City: Porrúa, 1966), p. ix; T. García Figueras, "Romances hispánicos en las juderías de Marruecos," ABC, September 24, 1961; H. Yurchenko, "Taping History in Morocco," The American Record Guide (New York), 24:4 (December 1957), 130–132, 175. Nor do we know the extent—or present fate—of Alberto Hemsi's unedited Eastern collection. See "Sur le folklore séfardi," JS, 18 (April 1959), 794–795. Isaac Levy's unedited collection likewise remains unknown. Moshe Attias refers to various unedited ballad collections that were in his possession. In 1927, Sarah Begas gave him the texts that she had transcribed in Larissa, her birthplace, and Salonika during the 1890s and the early years of the present century. Dr. Samuel Pinto presented in 1957 to Attias a copy of a rich collection of ballads and lyric songs that he had gathered in Sarajevo. Some time after the death of Salomon Israel Cherezli (1937), his son Achinoam gave Attias a selection of traditional poetry found among the posthumous papers of the distinguished lexicographer (see n. 5 above). See M. Attias, Cancionero judeo-español (Jerusalem: Centro de Estudios sobre el Judaísmo de Salónica, 1972), pp. 300–301, 323–325, 333,n. 58; "Çerôr^[*] rômansôt^[*] bi-kt^[*] "y sel^[*] Sarayevo," Shevet va'Am, 2 (=7) (1973), 295–370: p. 299; and our article (with Iacob M. Hassán), "Un nuevo testimonio del romancero sefardí en el siglo XVIII," ESef, 1 (1978), 197–212. Undoubtedly still other unedited collections have escaped our notice.

Judeo-Spanish ballad research in America begins with the romances we have annotated in the present edition: 46 texts of Eastern Mediterranean and Moroccan origin, representing 43 different text-types, collected by Professor Maír José Benardete in New York City during the winter of 1922 and spring of 1923.^[19] Benardete's pioneering work was to be followed by that of many other collectors. The next attempt to tap the rich and variegated Sephardic ballad resources available in New York^[20] was put forward by Federico de Onís who, between 1930 and 1938, made phonograph recordings of North African and Eastern ballads at Columbia University. Starting around 1930, Onís recorded seven romances sung by Suzanne (Simy) Nahón de Toledano from Tangier.^[21] The Moroccan recordings were followed by others devoted to ballads sung by Eastern (Rhodian and Salonikan) informants in 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1938. In addition to the texts collected from Mrs. Toledano, Onís recorded a total of 22 Eastern Sephardic romances. Contemporary with Onís's work were the recordings produced at Barnard College in 1930 (or 1931) by Franz Boas and Zarita Nahón, who collected 15 romances (as well as two children's songs, two wedding songs, a lullaby, and an endecha [dirge]) also sung by Mrs. Toledano.^[22] The early 1930s also saw another important collecting campaign in the Sephardic community of Seattle (Washington): Between 1931 and 1936, Emma Adatto collected ballads, folk-tales (konsezas^[*] ) and proverbs from Turkish and Rhodian informants in Seattle, to form a rich and highly significant body of Judeo-Spanish folk-literature, which, unfortunately, remains largely unedited to this day: 18 romances (representing 15 text-types) are included in her M. A. thesis; 28 more texts (= 19 text-types), some of which overlap, with minor variations, the thesis texts, figure in unedited MSS and typescripts; 31 more texts were recorded on phonograph discs at the University of Washington;

[19] "Los romances judeo-españoles en Nueva York" (M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1923).

[20] See Louis M. Hacker, "The Communal Life of the Sephardic Jews in New York City," Journal of Jewish Communal Service (New York), 3 (1926), 32–40; Max A. Luria, "Judeo-Spanish Dialects in New York City," Todd Memorial Volumes: Philological Studies, II, ed. John D. Fitz-Gerald and Pauline Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1930), 7–16.

[21] See S. G. Armistead and J. H. Silverman (with the collaboration of O. A. Librowicz), Romances judeo-españoles de Tánger, collected by Zarita Nahón (Madrid: C.S.M.P., 1977), pp. 24 n. 43, and 229. Some (or all?) of the Toledano recordings may be later than we supposed. One of the discs is dated "May 1936."

[22] See S. G. Armistead, I. J. Katz, and J. H. Silverman, "Judeo-Spanish Folk Poetry from Morocco (The Boas–Nahón Collection)," YIFMC, 11 (1979), 59–75.

and nine more are included in the unedited collection of the Archivo Menéndez Pidal in Madrid.^[23] On February 18, 1935, Henry V. Besso attended a "Recital de música sefardí" at the Hispanic Institute in New York and obtained the texts of four romances sung on that occasion, which he was to publish years later in the Homenaje a Federico de Onís.^[24]

The years immediately preceding World War II, the unspeakable events of the Holocaust, and the postwar 1940s seemed to mark a complete cessation of research on Sephardic folk-literature in the United States. Only in 1947 did Susan Bassan Warner form a small, but interesting collection of Eastern Sephardic (almost exclusively Salonikan) ballads in her Columbia M.A. thesis.^[25] In 1950 David Romey brought together 24 romances (plus lyric songs, proverbs, and konsezas^[*] ) from Turkish informants in Seattle, following up the earlier fieldwork of Emma Adatto.^[26] At about the same time, Raymond R. MacCurdy revealed the ballad potential of the Atlanta, Georgia, Sephardic community by recording six narrative poems (and two lyric songs) from a Rhodian informant, Mrs. Catina Cohen.^[27] In 1952, Denah Levy Lida included Smyrnian versions of Conde Niño, Muerte del príncipe don Juan, La doncella guerrera, and El buceador in her Ph.D. dissertation on the Izmir dialect of New York.^[28] MacCurdy's work in Atlanta was followed up, in the late 1950s, by Isaac Jack Levy, who brought together an abundant corpus of ballads sung and recited by Eastern informants both in Atlanta and in Brooklyn.^[29]

Our own field activities, aimed at forming and saving for future generations a massive collection of Sephardic folk-literature, began in Los Angeles in

[23] See E. Adatto Schlesinger, "A Study of the Linguistic Characteristics of the Seattle Sefardí Folklore" (M.A. thesis, University of Washington, 1935); also CMP, III, 145–146 (encuestas 230–236).

[24] H. V. Besso, "Los sefardíes y el idioma castellano," RHM, 34 (1968), 176–194: pp. 188–189.

[25] Susan Bassan [Warner], "Judeo-Spanish Folk Poetry" (M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1947). Among the apparently unedited romances and romancillos she cites, we count ten texts from the Salonikan tradition and a fragment from Monastir.

[26] "A Study of Spanish Tradition in Isolation as Found in the Romances, Refranes, and Storied Folklore of the Seattle Sephardic Community" (M.A. thesis, University of Washington, 1950).

[27] Raymond R. MacCurdy and Daniel D. Stanley, "Judaeo-Spanish Ballads from Atlanta, Georgia," SFQ, 15 (1951), 221–238.

[28] "El sefardí esmirniano de Nueva York" (Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1952), pp. 63, 64, 67–68, 69–70; on the rare Buceador, see our article in ESef, 1 (1978), 59–64.

[29] Isaac Jack Levy, "Sephardic Ballads and Songs in the United States: New Variants and Additions" (M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 1959); also Ralph Tarica, "Sephardic Culture in Atlanta," South Atlantic Bulletin (S.A.M.L.A., Chapel Hill, N.C.), 25:4 (March 1960), 1–5. Cf. Itzhak Bar-Lewaw, "Aspectos del judeo-español de las comunidades sefardíes en Atlanta, Ga. y Montgomery, Ala. (EE. UU.)," XI Congreso Internacional de Lingüística y Filología Románicas: Actas, 4, 2109–2124: p. 2119.

August 1957. In 1958 and 1959 we extended our work to Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. The most intensive fieldwork in the United States was conducted between 1957 and 1960, though there have also been subsequent recording sessions in Los Angeles (1963), Philadelphia (1969), and New York (1971). As of now, the total number of texts we have recorded in the United States stands at around five hundred (plus many hundreds more collected in Israel and in Morocco, in collaboration with Israel J. Katz). Except for one brief Moroccan interview in Los Angeles (1963), our entire U.S. collection was provided by Eastern singers. A total of 76 informants were interviewed. The texts collected in the United States embody 84 different text-types.^[30]

The 1970s have witnessed a surge of interest in all aspects of the Pan-Hispanic Romancero.^[31] Sephardic ballad studies have recently been favored by the fieldwork of three young scholars: Rina Benmayor, Oro Anahory Librowicz, and Mónica E. Hollander. Working in Los Angeles and Seattle, Rina Benmayor brought together, between November 1972 and June 1973, a splendid collection of some 125 versions, representing 39 different text-types. The collection's special contribution lies in its abundant documentation from the Bosphorus communities, an area largely neglected in earlier explorations.^[32] Since 1971, Oro Librowicz has formed a highly significant collection of some 252 ballads from the North African communities and Gibraltar. Derived from 22 different informants in New York, Madrid, Málaga, Caracas, Montreal, Tangier, and Israel, her collection represents 82 different narrative types.^[33] The texts recorded in New York (15 romances ) were sung by an informant from Gibraltar, thus providing knowledge of a heretofore unknown branch of the North African tradition. Mónica Hollander's fieldwork in New York and in

[30] See J. H. Silverman, "Hacia un gran romancero sefardí," El Romancero en la tradición oral moderna, pp. 31–38; also our Tres calas en el romancero, pp. 116–119.

[31] See S. G. Armistead "A Critical Bibliography of the Hispanic Ballad in Oral Tradition (1971–1979)," El Romancero hoy: Historia, comparatismo, bibliografía crítica, ed. S. G. Armistead, A. Sánchez Romeralo, and D. Catalán (Madrid: C.S.M.P. and University of California, 1979), pp. 199–310; S. G. Armistead, "Romancero Studies (1977–1979)," La Corónica, 8:1 (Fall 1979), 57–66.

[32] "Romances judeo-españoles de Oriente recogidos en la Costa Occidental de los Estados Unidos" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1974); revised, with the addition of numerous texts, as Romances judeo-españoles de Oriente: Nueva recolección, Madrid: C.S.M.P., 1979. See also Rina Benmayor, "Oral Narrative and the Comparative Method: The Judeo-Spanish Ballad Chapbooks of Yacob Abraham Yoná, " RPh, 31 (1977–1978), 501–521; idem, "A Greek Tragoúdi in the Repertoire of a Judeo-Spanish Ballad Singer," HR, 46 (1978), 475–479; idem, "Un texto sefardí oriental del Cautivo del renegado," ESef, 1 (1978), 139–141.

[33] See the publications cited in n. 6; also "Florilegio de romances sefardíes de la diáspora: Breve panorama de una colección judeo-malagueña," El Romancero hoy: Nuevas fronteras, ed. A. Sánchez Romeralo, D. Catalán, and S. G. Armistead (Madrid: C.S.M.P. and University of California, 1979), pp. 91–97.

Montevideo (Uruguay), between December 1972 and November 1973, has produced a collection of some 80 romance texts, reflecting 35 different text-types, recorded from 21 different informants originally from Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. Well over half of the versions were collected in the United States.^[34]

Sephardic ballad fieldwork in the United States has produced notable results. Many hundreds of texts which would otherwise have vanished without a trace have been saved from oblivion. Yet much more remains to be done and many communities have yet to be explored: Highland Park (New Jersey), Cleveland (Ohio), Indianapolis (Indiana), Chicago (Illinois), Montgomery (Alabama), Miami (Florida), and Portland (Oregon), among others, all have Sephardic communities that await exploration.^[35] As Sephardic speech and folklore retreat

[34] See the dissertation cited in n. 15; also "Romances judeo-españoles de Oriente recogidos en Montevideo y Nueva York," El Romancero hoy: Nuevas fronteras, pp. 99–104. There are other instances of Sephardic ballad collecting in the United States. William Samuelson of San Antonio (Texas) has formed an interesting collection of romances from Turkey, though none of the songs published in his "Romances and Songs of the Sephardim, " The Sephardi Heritage: Essays on the History and Cultural Contribution of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, ed. Richard D. Barnett, (New York: Ktav, 1971), I, 527–551, can be classed as a romance. Recently, Robin Greenstein included two romances (Landarico and Sentenciado del bajá ) in La Serena: A Collection of Ladino Songs ([Washington, D.C.], American Jewish Congress, Martin Steinberg Center, 1979).

[35] Concerning Sephardic communities in the United States and elsewhere in the world, see David Ahiod, "Judaísmo sobre las orillas del Bósforo," Voz Sefaradí, 1:2 (July 1966), 7–10; Marc D. Angel, "The Sephardim of the United States: An Exploratory Study," American Jewish Yearbook (New York and Philadelphia), 74(1973), 77–138; idem, The Jews of Rhodes, pp. 146–148; M. J. Benardete, Hispanic Culture and Character of the Sephardic Jews (New York: Hispanic Institute, 1952), pp. 134–151; idem, Hispanismo de los sefardíes levantinos (Madrid: Aguilar, 1963), pp. 154–174; Joan Dash, "Sephardim: A Modern Door to Fifteenth-Century Spain," Américas, 17:10 (October 1965), 8–14; Leonard Plotnick, "The Sephardim of New Lots: Self-Containment and Expansion," Commentary, 25:1 (January 1958), 28–35; Allen H. Podet and Dan Chasan, "Heirs to a Noble Past: Seattle's Storied Sephardic Jews," Seattle Magazine 4:38 (May 1967), 40–48; David de Sola Pool, Raphael Patai, and Abraham Lopes Cardozo, The World of the Sephardim (New York: Herzl Press, 1960); Stephen Stern, "The Sephardic Jewish Community of Los Angeles: A Study in Folklore and Ethnic Identity" (Ph.D. diss. Indiana University, 1977); Vicki Tamir, Bulgaria and Her Jews: The History of a Dubious Symbiosis (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1979). Max Vorspan and Lloyd P. Gartner, History of the Jews of Los Angeles (Philadelphia: J.P.S.A., 1970) includes little information on the Sephardim. See, however, pp. 116, 261–262, 321 n. 31, and 345 n. 12.

Among the papers of Américo Castro we found an interesting article by R. Marín entitled "Los sefarditas de Manila," published in Democracia Española (Manila, November 30, 1937). Marín noted that there was a large Sephardic colony of Turkish origin that had been established in the city around 1913. In describing a warm reception that the Sephardim had prepared for Antonio Jaén, the Spanish Consul-General, he mentioned that there was much singing of "viejas melodías españolas" and "viejos romances castellanos." One can only lament that no one was there to copy down the precious versions sung in Manila that afternoon in honor of Sr. Jaén and "la España doliente, liberal, democrática y republicana." For another example of a regrettably lost opportunity to transcribe Sephardic ballads from the oral tradition, see Joseph H. Silverman, "La contaminación como arte en un romance de Tánger," El Romancero hoy: Poética, ed. D. Catalán, S. G.Armistead, A. Sánchez Fomeralo (Madrid: C.S.M.P. and University of California, 1979), pp. 29–37; 35–36 n. 6.

before the irresistible onslaught of the English language and modern American mass-media culture, the urgency of renewed efforts toward further fieldwork becomes patently clear. Without doubt the next few years will see the irretrievable disappearance of whatever now remains to be saved.^[36]

Maír José Benardete's pioneering work in New York City—the first Sephardic ballad-collecting campaign ever undertaken in the United States—is important for a number of reasons, above and beyond the mere chronological fact of having captured a sample of the tradition almost a decade before the work of any other American collector. Benardete is also the only fieldworker to date to have attempted an extensive survey of both branches of the Sephardic tradition from the vantage point of the American immigrant communities. All of us who worked subsequently have, in our American fieldwork, concentrated our efforts on either Eastern or Moroccan informants. Benardete, on the other hand, cast a wide net and came up with a number of rare text-types, some of which have not been recorded again in the U.S. communities—or, at best, have only been recorded in single texts or exiguous fragments. Such are numbers (1) Destierro del Cid + Quejas de Jimena; (3) Sueño de doña Alda + Melisenda insomne; (8) Expulsión de los judíos de Portugal; (31) Rapto; (32) Forzador; (38) Pozo airón; and (39) Sierpe del río. As a representative of the Salonikan tradition, (17) Tarquino y Lucrecia should also be noted for its rarity and the same can be said of (20B ) Don Bueso y su hermana, which, in its archaic hexasyllabic form, is now scarcely heard in the Moroccan tradition. Among Benardete's texts there are also a number that `er significant new insights into the variegated traditional life of the ballads in question. His Sueño de doña Alda (no. 3) is unique in preserving a vestige of the original bird imagery of the protagonist's ominous dream. His no. 19, Hermanas reina y cautiva, allows us to document for the first time in the Moroccan tradition the use of the "euphe-

[36] On the twentieth-century crisis of Sephardic culture, see M. J. Benardete, "Cultural Erosion among the Hispano-Levantine Jews," Homenaje a Millás-Vallicrosa, 2 vols. (Barcelona: C.S.I.C., 1954), I, 125–154; Henry V. Besso, "Decadencia del judeo-español: Perspectivas para el futuro," Actas del Primer Simposio de Estudios Sefardíes, ed I. M. Hassán et al. (Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1970), pp. 249–261 and the discussion of his paper on pp. 414–426; Denah Lida, "The Vanishing Sephardin," JS, no. 24 (July 1962), 1035–1040, 1048; Juan Octavio Prenz, "Vicisitudes del judeo-español de Bosnia," Románica, 1 (1968), 163–173; Sephiha, L'Agonie, passim; and for additional references, our Tres calas en el romancero, p. 141 n. 39.

Jacob Glantz—a pioneer of Mexican Yiddish poetry—once observed with undisguised melancholy: "We Yiddish poets are the loneliest in the world, poets without young readers." Elderly Sephardic ballad singers might respond: "We Sephardic balladeers are the loneliest in the world, singers without young listeners."

mistic third person" in referring to tragic events. Benardete's Moroccan Vuelta del marido (é ) no. 22, attests to an uncommon migratory epilogue. No. 24, Diego León, offers a singular contamination from the rare Mal casamiento impedido. His unique Salonikan version of El conde Alarcos (no. 27) takes the narrative one stage further than any other variant published to date. No. 28A, a fragment of La mala suegra, offers a notable example of the interaction of ballads and proverbs; and Benardete's version of El rapto (no. 31) offers readings that help us to bridge the gap between the modern North African tradition and the song recorded by Lope de Vega.

In the present edition, we have maintained the normative orthography used in the original thesis. Contaminated texts containing more than one narrative type, which in Benardete's thesis were separated into their various components, have been reunited here. In the section devoted to English abstracts and bibliography, we have attempted to draft summaries based on all published texts known to us and on every available unpublished version as well. The abstracts follow those included in CMP but, in every case, they have been considerably amplified with numerous details produced by a more exhaustive consultation of edited and unedited materials. Each abstract is specific to the subtradition—Eastern or Moroccan—to which the texts edited here belong. The bibliography strives to be exhaustive for both branches of the Sephardic romancero, in that we have attempted to list all versions, both published and unedited, which have been consulted or are known to us. Following the Sephardic listings in the individual bibliographies of each text-type, references, where pertinent, are provided to the most important collections in the modern Castilian, Portuguese, Catalan, and Hispano-American traditions; then, to earlier (fifteenth- to seventeenth-century) evidence, if it exists; and, finally, to any known analogues in other European traditions, using in each case the fundamental research instruments for each category. In these individual bibliographies, Eastern texts bear no introductory sign; a single slash (/) marks references to Moroccan versions; two (//) indicate Peninsular and Hispano-American collections; three (///) introduce early (fifteenth- to seventeenth-century) texts; and four (////) mark analogues in other European traditions. A thematic classification (correlated to CMP), a general bibliography, indexes of informants, ballad titles, and first verses, and a glossary of dialect forms have also been provided.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the generous support of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Committee on Research of the University of California at Santa Cruz in the preparation and printing of this volume.

James Kubeck was very helpful in submitting our work to the University of California Press. Deirdre Jackson, Judith Pepper, and Diane Roberts provided excellent editorial assistance and typing. Our greatest debt of gratitude is, of course, to Professor Maír J. Benardete for granting us the opportunity to prepare this edition of his precious ballad collection.

S.G.A. AND J.H.S.
PHILADELPHIA AND SANTA CRUZ
FEBRUARY 1980