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The Sephardic Culture Days in Bucharest, a traditional event in the Romanian cultural space, will take place on 15 and 16 November, at the Cervantes Institute, in the organization of the institute, but also of the Goldstein Goren Hebrew Studies Center, in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy in Bucharest, the Embassy of Turkey in Romania, the International Jewish Film Festival, the B'nai B'rith Forum Dr. Moses Rosen, the Bucharest Municipality Museum and Fraterna Association, told Agerpres.
On Tuesday, 15 November, between 17:30 - 18:00, the opening of the exhibitions "Jews in documents from the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey" is scheduled, offered by the Turkish Embassy in Bucharest and "#FemeiRezistente", an exhibition created and organized by the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires and offered by the Spanish Embassy in Romania, informs the Cervantes Institute, in a statement sent to AGERPRES on Thursday.
On the same day, the programme will continue with a dialogue between ambassadors on "The Sephardic Experience in Spain and Latin America", which is expected to be attended by the Ambassador of Israel in Romania, Reuven Azar and the Ambassador of Spain in Bucharest, Jose Antonio Hernandez Perez-Solórzano.
From 19:00, the guests of the Spanish institute will attend the screening of the "Shlomo Bar" movie, in the presence of the director Gilad Inbar, followed by a Q & A session.
On Wednesday, 16 November, at 18:00, the "Sephardic Folklore" round table will take place, moderated by Felicia Waldman, from the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, coordinator of the Center for Hebrew Studies and editor of the Studia Hebraica academic journal. Donna Levy (Uruguay), Solomon Bali (Bulgaria), Rebecca (Rita) Gabbai (Greece) are invited to participate.
Bogdan Mihailescu (guitar) will perform a microrecital of Sephardic music.
Donna Levy, wife of Uruguay's Ambassador to Bucharest, Alberto Antonio Rodriguez Goni, was born in Tel Aviv in 1957. The daughter of a father born in Jerusalem and of a Sephardic mother, now aged 94, who is among the few survivors of the Holocaust in Thessaloniki, remembers her grandmother on her mother's side, born Gategno, who, despite the fact that she lived her entire life between Thessaloniki and Athens, never learned Greek, always using her native language, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish).
Born in Sofia in 1967 and specialized in business consultancy, Solomon Bali is active as a political analyst, expert in anti-Semitism and radicalism and a defender of human rights. He was involved in the reorganization of the Jewish community in Bulgaria after the fall of communism and is a member of several Jewish and international organizations. Raised in a family with a Sephardic tradition, he believes that Ladino is a significant component of his identity.
Rebecca (Rita) Gabbai was born in Athens in 1935 to Sephardic parents who came from Turkey. He worked for over 20 years as a cultural officer at the Embassy of the State of Israel in Greece and occupied various positions within the Jewish and Athenian community. She is currently vice-president of the B'nai Brith Athens organization. Author of numerous books in Greek, she has published three volumes of poetry in Ladino (Kinyentos anyos despues, Fuente de mi tradisyon, Poezias de mi vida), but also the first Dikssionario Grego-Ladino (2004). An active promoter of the Judeo-Spanish language and culture, she holds courses for adults and is currently working on a book about the Jewish presence in Athens.
