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Ben Gurion, Flavius Josephus; R. Abraham Assa, translator, Constantinople 1743

בן גוריון - יוסיפון - First Ladino Edition

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Details
  • Lot Number 45870
  • Title (English) Ben Gurion
  • Title (Hebrew) בן גוריון - יוסיפון
  • Note First Ladino Edition
  • Author Flavius Josephus; R. Abraham Assa, translator
  • City Constantinople
  • Publisher דפוס יונה [בן יעקב אשכנזי],
  • Publication Date 1743
  • Estimated Price - Low 2,000
  • Estimated Price - High 4,000

  • Item # 1245027
  • End Date
  • Start Date
Description

Physical Description:

First Ladino edition, 158 ff., quarto, 205:147 mm., light age and damp staining, wide margins, oldhands and stamps on title. A very good copy bound in modern full leather over boards.

 

Detailed Description:   

A history of the Jews in Ladino attributed to Joseph ben Gurion, a tenth century resident of southern Italy. Whether this Joseph was the author or not, internal evidence dates Josippon to the middle of that century, with one manuscript being dated 953. Furthermore, a primary source of the author, who did reside in southern Italy, then part of the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire, was a Latin manuscript with sixteen only of the Antiquities’ twenty books and the Hegesippus, a Latin adaptation of the Jewish War, suggesting that the author was not literate in Greek. He was, however, knowledgeable in Jewish literature, as evidenced by his Hebrew style and use of older material. Josippon is divided into six books, subdivided into 97 chapters. It is based upon the works of Josephus, primarily the Wars and Antiquities, and to a lesser extent Against Apion, excluding the Life. Joseph does, however, occasionally insert material from other sources, including oral traditions. There is also much legendary and non-historical matter in Josippon.

Translated by R. Abraham Assa, the single most important contributor to the Ladino literature of all times. Ladino religious literature had its origins in pre-expulsion Spain, it was only in exile, however, that it really developed. The major original translations include the Book of Psalms (Constantinople, 1540); the Pentateuch (Constantinople, 1547); the Prophets (Salonica, 1572); and a complete translation of the Bible by R. Abraham b. Isaac Assa (Constantinople, 1739–45), which became the most popular text among the Sephardic communities of the East.

Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish commonly referred to as Ladino, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. Originally spoken in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire (the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa) as well as in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Morocco, and the United Kingdom, today it is spoken mainly by Sephardic minorities in more than 30 countries, with most of the speakers residing in Israel. Although it has no official status in any country, it has been acknowledged as a minority language in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel, France and Turkey. It is also formally recognised by the Royal Spanish Academy.

The core vocabulary of Judaeo-Spanish is Old Spanish (as Old Portuguese is of Judaeo-Portuguese) and it has numerous elements from all the old Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula: Old Aragonese, Astur-Leonese, Old Catalan, Galician-Portuguese and Mozarabic. The language has been further enriched by Ottoman Turkish and Semitic vocabulary, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, especially in the domains of religion, law and spirituality and most of the vocabulary for new and modern concepts has been adopted through French and Italian. Furthermore, the language is influenced to a lesser degree by other local languages of the Balkans, such as Greek, Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.

Historically, the Rashi script and its cursive form Solitreo have been the main orthographies for writing Judaeo-Spanish. However today, it is mainly written with the Latin alphabet, though some other alphabetssuch as Hebrew and Cyrillic are still in use. Judaeo-Spanish is known by many different names, mostly: Español/Espanyol, Judió/Djudyo (or Jidió/Djidyo), Judesmo/Djudezmo, Sefaradhí/Sefaradi and Ḥaketilla/Haketia. In Turkey and formerly in the Ottoman Empire, it has been traditionally called Yahudice in Turkish, meaning the Jewish language. In Israel, Hebrew speakers usually call the language (E)spanyolit or Ladino.

Judaeo-Spanish, once the trade language of the Adriatic Sea, the Balkans and the Middle-East and renowned for its rich literature especially in Salonika, today is under serious threat of extinction. Most native speakers are elderly, and the language is not transmitted to their children or grandchildren for various reasons. In some expatriate communities in Latin America and elsewhere, there is a threat of dialect levelling resulting in extinction by assimilation into modern Spanish. It is experiencing, however, a minor revival among Sephardic communities, especially in music.

 

Hebrew Description: 

אי רישטו די אישטורייאש וירדאדיראש... די טודו לו קי פאשו אין איל מונדו אי לו קי פאשארון לוס ג'ודייוס אין טיינפו אנטיגו, טודו קונפואישטו די רבנים גאונים אנטיגוש קונוסידוס... אי אפ'ואירה די בן גוריון טופארה מונג'וס חידושים...

"ספר בן גוריון [מתורגם ללאדינו] ושאר סיפורים אמיתיים... על כל מה שהתרחש בעולם ומה שאירע ליהודים בזמן העתיק הכל מאת רבנים גאונים קדמונים ידועים...".
דף ב,א: הקדמת המתרגם ר' אברהם אסא. שמו חתום בראשי החרוזים בשיר שבדף קמה,ב.
דף ב,ב: "הקדמה די הראב"ד", עיבוד של דברי ר' אברהם בן דוד בעל ספר הקבלה בהקדמתו ל"דברי מלכי ישראל בבית השני" (הוצאת מנטובה רע"ד).
דף ג-יא: "לו די אנטיש די בן גוריון" (לפני בן גוריון). קיצור תולדות העולם, מלכי היהודים והעמים, מאדם הראשון עד שמעון הצדיק.
דף קמה,ב: שיר בלאדינו מאת המתרגם, פותח "איס מיניסטיר , אי בואין אקומיטיר" (רומירו, קומפלאס, עמ' 25, מס' 8).
דף קמו-קנז: "לו דישפואיש די בן גוריון" (אחרי בן גוריון), קיצור תולדות העולם מתקופת טיטוס ועד השולטאן סולימאן II (המאה השש-עשרה).
דף קנז,ב: עיבוד של חתימת הראב"ד לספר הקבלה (מנטובה רע"ד).
דף קנח: רשימת המלכים העות'מאנים, עד שנת תק"ד.
אותיות מרובעות.

 

References

CD-NLI 0189355; Vinoigrad 525; Yudlov, Ginzei Yisroel 1546; EJ; Wikipedia