David Bunis
David M. Bunis (PhD., Columbia University, 1981) is a professor in the Department of Hebrew and the Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and heads its program in Judezmo (or Ladino) studies. He is also an advisor to the Israel National Authority for Ladino Language and Culture and a member of the Ladino Academy of Israel. He is the author of A Lexicon of the Hebrew and Aramaic Elements in Modern Judezmo (Jerusalem, 1993), The Judezmo Language (in Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1999), Voices from Jewish Salonika (Jerusalem-Salonika, 1999), and numerous articles on the Judezmo language and its literature and on Jewish languages as a field of scholarly inquiry. He is the editor of Languages and Literatures of Sephardic and Oriental Jews (Jerusalem, 2009), and a co-editor of Massorot, and Caminos de leche y miel: Festscrift in Honor of Michael Studemund- Halevy II (Barcelona, 2018).
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Papers by David Bunis
With the onset of westernization and modernization from the end of the eighteenth century, a Judezmo press and secular literature began to emerge at the middle of the nineteenth century. In Ottoman Eretz Israel the first Judezmo periodical, Ḥavaṣelet: Mĕvasseret Yĕrušalayim, edited by Jerusalem-born E. Benveniste, began to appear at the press of Israel
Baeck in 1870/71. It continued to use some linguistic and stylistic features typical of Rabbinic Judezmo; but it also incorporated elements being borrowed into Judezmo at the time from influential Western European languages such as Italian and French. The language and style of the periodicals edited and published by the next generation of Judezmo journalists in Ottoman Eretz Israel, whose most outstanding representative was probably Jerusalem-born S. I. Sherezli, were characterized by far fewer features reminiscent of traditional Rabbinic
Judezmo and much more significant influence from Western European languages such as French, Italian, and to a lesser extent, Castilian. With the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 a new generation of journalists, mostly immigrants from regions of the former Ottoman Empire, continued Judezmo journalism, mostly based in Tel Aviv, employing an even more highly western-influenced language. But with the growing success of the Hebrew Revival movement in Eretz Israel and the State of Israel, Judezmo journalism there was almost entirely replaced by the burgeoning Hebrew press. The article illustrates and analyzes the transition in the Judezmo press of Late Ottoman Eretz Israel from a more traditional to a considerably more modernized, westernized language and style; as well as the allusions in the local Judezmo press to the increasing use of Hebrew as a living spoken and written language amongst all of the Jewish residents of Late Ottoman Eretz Israel.
With the onset of westernization and modernization from the end of the eighteenth century, a Judezmo press and secular literature began to emerge at the middle of the nineteenth century. In Ottoman Eretz Israel the first Judezmo periodical, Ḥavaṣelet: Mĕvasseret Yĕrušalayim, edited by Jerusalem-born E. Benveniste, began to appear at the press of Israel
Baeck in 1870/71. It continued to use some linguistic and stylistic features typical of Rabbinic Judezmo; but it also incorporated elements being borrowed into Judezmo at the time from influential Western European languages such as Italian and French. The language and style of the periodicals edited and published by the next generation of Judezmo journalists in Ottoman Eretz Israel, whose most outstanding representative was probably Jerusalem-born S. I. Sherezli, were characterized by far fewer features reminiscent of traditional Rabbinic
Judezmo and much more significant influence from Western European languages such as French, Italian, and to a lesser extent, Castilian. With the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 a new generation of journalists, mostly immigrants from regions of the former Ottoman Empire, continued Judezmo journalism, mostly based in Tel Aviv, employing an even more highly western-influenced language. But with the growing success of the Hebrew Revival movement in Eretz Israel and the State of Israel, Judezmo journalism there was almost entirely replaced by the burgeoning Hebrew press. The article illustrates and analyzes the transition in the Judezmo press of Late Ottoman Eretz Israel from a more traditional to a considerably more modernized, westernized language and style; as well as the allusions in the local Judezmo press to the increasing use of Hebrew as a living spoken and written language amongst all of the Jewish residents of Late Ottoman Eretz Israel.
The contributions are brought together to honor Professor David M. Bunis of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a leading, world-renowned scholar of Judezmo/Ladino, Yiddish and other Jewish languages, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.
The four-day conference, which is supported by the Israel Science Foundation, includes lectures on Ladino (Judezmo), Yiddish, varieties of Judeo-Arabic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic, Judeo-Persian, Juhuri, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Portuguese, Judeo-Georgian, and other Jewish languages.
An introduction to the life of the Judezmo-speaking Jews of the Ottoman Empire and its successor states through reading and analysis of Judezmo (Ladino) texts.