The History of the Me'am Lo'ez

The eighteenth century was a turning point in the cultural history of the Judeo-Spanish community in the Ottoman Empire. This turning point evolves the use of Ladino for rabbinical literature, until then mostly and regularly written in Hebrew. It was the initiative of Rabbi Ya'akov Khulí (Jerusalem, 1689-Kushta-Constantinople-Istanbul, 1732) to publish his commentary on the Bible entitled: Me'am Lo'ez (1st edition: Kushta-Istanbul, 1730) in Ladino, that inaugurated a new era for Ladino culture. Rabbi Ya'akov Khulí decided to take such a revolutionary step in view of the cultural gap existing, in his time and place, between the Hebrew-writing rabbinical élite on the one hand, and the rank and file of Judeo-Spanish speaking and Ladino-reading Sephardi public on the other hand. The author of the Me'am Lo'ez explained his intentions in the two introductions preceding his work: the first one in Hebrew, addressed to his fellow rabbinical sages and the second one in Ladino, addressed to the general public of readers in that language. Soon after its publication, the Me'am Lo'ez gained an unprecedented popularity that was to last for the next two hundred years. Even after the premature demise of Rabbi Ya'akov Khulí, other rabbinical scholars continued his project and published their commentaries on more books of the Hebrew Bible, following Rabbi Khulí's guidelines. Thanks to its Ladino language, the Me'am Lo'ez became known among Sephardi women as well. Although most of them could not read or write, they could understand what was being read aloud to them in Ladino. For Sephardi women, the Me'am Lo'ez thus became the gateway to Jewish tradition. The Me'am Lo'ez turned out to be the guiding authority for everyday life of the Sephardi communities in the Mediterranean basin. The teachings of the Me'am Lo'ez were the backbone of their cultural heritage with which they were to face the new trends of modernity arriving in the Ottoman Empire in the course of the nineteenth century

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