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Sephardic songs accompanied life from beginning to end—love and courtship, pregnancy, childbirth, weddings, and mourning. They also marked the yearly cycle with songs rooted in Jewish traditions and historical events.
Ladino, originating from 15th-century  Spanish, was the language of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. As they dispersed across the Mediterranean, Ladino song absorbed local linguistic and musical influences.
There are two main dialects:
Ladino (Español) – Spoken in Turkey, Greece, Sarajevo, Bulgaria, Rhodes, and beyond.
Haketia – The dialect of northern Morocco.

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From Arboleras vol. 1 - Sephardic cancionero and coplas oral tradition,1996 This song was performed at the exhibition of the bride’s dowry, as mocking dialogue-dispute between the groom´s mother and the bride´s mother, the two...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Y2856/4 Referenced and notated in: Romancero Sefardi de Marruecos, pg. 140, Editorial Alpuerto, Pardes Publishing House, 2018 Susana Weich-Shahak. The theme of the husband going off to war, leaving his...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: NSA Y2093/1 Referenced and notated in: Romansero Sefardi de Oriente pg. 169 Editorial Alpuerto S.A. 2010 Susana Weich-Shahak. This is a partial version of a romansa that was written in...
From Ventanas Altas de Saloniki, 2013. This is a version of La doncella guerrera, The warrior maiden, which is widely spread across Spain and within the Sephardic diaspora. In all versions, a dialogue takes place...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Yc5540 This is a version of La doncella guerrera, The warrior maiden, which is widely spread across Spain and within the Sephardic diaspora. In all versions, a dialogue takes place...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: 2287/10,11       Although known in some versions from the Canary Islands and Portugal, in no tradition has this romance been preserved with as much vitality as in the Sephardic one (from...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: YCD2980/9 Referenced and notated in: Romancero Sefardi de Oriente, pg. 133, Editorial Alpuerto, 2010 Susana Weich-Shahak. Another ballad on the universal theme of the adulterous woman discovered by her husband...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: NSA Y2093/14 Referenced and notated in: Romansero Sefardi de Oriente 17c Editorial Alpuerto S.A. 2010 Susana Weich-Shahak La vuelta del marido chronicles the familiar motif of a husband’s homecoming, widely...
From Arboleras Vol. 2 - Romances Sefardies Tradicion Oral Here we find a common occurance, a fusion of two romances, both from the French epic tradition, El cautiverio de Guarinos, lines 1-10, and El sueño...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: YCD5216/57 Referenced and notated in: El ciclo de la vida, pg. 226, Editorial Alpuerto, 2013 Susana Weich-Shahak. During the bride’s bath, an event attended only by women, that, in both...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Yc1097/10 This philosophical love song marvels at a beautiful light seen through a window and wonders if it is the morning star or the eyes of their beloved. It turns...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Y5671/30
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Y5671/15 Referenced and notated in: Romancero Sefardi de Oriente, pg. 119, Editorial Alpuerto, 2010 Susana Weich-Shahak. Only the first four verses belong to the theme Casada con un viejo -...
Jerusalem National Sound Archives placement: Y 6007c/21 This is a partial rendition of one of the songs sung at the end of the Passover meal. It is a cumulative song which is performed at length,...