In addition, he engaged in translating diverse literary works, including Greek classics, into Ladino, aided by his knowledge of Ancient Greek which he had acquired during his high school education in Salonika.Īvner Perez, the author of the parallel Hebrew translation of the Odysseyu, is an Israeli scholar of Hebrew, Greek and Ladino in his own right. 4 He also composed poetry about his Auschwitz experience and other subjects, a long biblical poem, and an original biblical play. He wrote a book about it in Ladino, later adapted to English. His writing dealt initially with his life-pre-Israel life. His community service was aimed at Israel’s Sephardic community, which was growing-and aging. In the intervening years, he completed and advanced his interrupted education, earning a Master’s degree in the humanities from the University of Tel Aviv.Īfter retirement, Haelion split his time between community service and writing, which he loved. Moshe Haelion remained affiliated with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) until his retirement in 1996. After the establishment of the State of Israel, he received officers’ training and graduated with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He then fought in Israel’s War of Independence, during which he was wounded. He was sent to a detention camp, Atlit, near Haifa. Soon after liberation, he left for Palestine on an illegal refugee ship which was captured by the British. During the balance of the war, he made the tour of three other concentration camps, mostly in Austria, and participated in at least two “death marches.” 3 He was liberated by the American forces at Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen in Austria, in May 1945. His family perished there quickly he was its sole survivor. In 1942, when he was barely seventeen, and before he could finish high school, he was shipped with his family to Auschwitz. To start with the latter, Moshe Haelion is an Israeli Sephardi of Greek origin born in Thessaloniki (Salonika) in 1925. The dedication coincided with the former president’s 90th birthday.Īn undertaking of this order requires readers to possess more than a cursory background on both its genesis and its author. The two translators jointly dedicated their work “ kon estima i afeksyon” to the late Yitshak Navon (1921-2015), fifth past president of Israel, and the first Sephardi to hold that position. This review, therefore, focuses on the Ladino translation. But this is the first time that a Ladino translation was attempted. The Odyssey had been translated into Hebrew before-by the Russian-born Hebrew poet Shaul Tchernikovsky (1875-1943). Both volumes contain, side by side, Ladino as well as Hebrew translations of the Odyssey by two different translators: Haelion, of the Ladino text, and Avner Perez of the Hebrew one. Volume I of the same work was published in 2011. Most readers of the Greek classic are familiar with the lethargic eaters of lotus, the one-eyed Cyclops, the tribe of giant cannibals, the Sirens, the six-headed monster Scylla, and the whirlpool Charybdis, which Odysseus encountered, and with the story’s happy ending. It tells the arduous return journey of ten years that Odysseus undertook to be reunited with his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope, and to kill the boisterous suitors who had been courting his wife in his absence. The Odyssey, of course, is the companion of (or sequel to) Homer’s Iliad, which tells the story of Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin), its hero, king of Ithaca, who joined the Trojan War to help retrieve Helen, abducted by Paris. 2 This constituted a landmark event not just for speakers and lovers of this historic language but also for linguists in general. The year 2015 saw the publication of a groundbreaking work in that language, namely, the second volume of the translation of Homer’s Odyssey from Ancient Greek directly into Ladino. II, 2014, 409 pp.Īnyone familiar with Jewish history knows that when Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 they carried with them the knowledge of their everyday language, which they preserved, with some adaptations, as Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish. La Odisea: Trezladada en ladino i ebreo del grego antiguo por Moshe ‘Ha-Elion i Avner Perez (in two volumes)
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