Izmir Müsevi Yetim Mektebi (Talmud Tora) Takvimi: Calendrier edite au profit de l'Oprhelinat Israelite de Smyrne annee 5691: 1930-1931

Title

קאלינדארייו פור איל אנייו 5691 אידיטאד'ו אל פרופ'יטו דיל תלמוד תורה די איזמירנה

Description

This calendar booklet (luaḥ in Hebrew) is one of over 30 calendars/almanacs written in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), which have been digitized by Project Zikaron. To see a complete list, click Ladino Calendars. They are filled with a plethora of information on three Jewish communities in particular: Saloniki (Thessaloniki), Greece; Izmir, Turkey; and Istanbul, Turkey.

These calendars/almanacs were printed between the late 19^th century and the middle of the 20^th century. Though they are less than 100 pages long, they shed a bright light on the daily life of these unique communities and cultures and the language which they spoke, namely Ladino. Apart from recording the Hebrew and secular calendars of the year, each booklet abounds with supplementary information.

The Izmir calendars were published by the local Talmud Torah as a fundraiser and contain several chapters on the activities of local organizations. This is followed by an astoundingly broad list of donor names by city of residence, containing for examples Jews from New York, Los Angeles, Atlantic City, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Cuba, Alexandria, Cairo, Corfu, cities in England, and mainland Europe. While the Saloniki calendars list all the secular and Christian holidays, the Turkish ones prominently list the many Muslim holidays and their corresponding Jewish dates.

At the end of each Saloniki calendar are details of the Oriental Railway detailing the information and costs needed for the many stops along the way from Saloniki to Paris. Cities such as Monastir (Bitola, Macedonia today) are given prominent mention on the train routes due to the close connection between the Jewish communities of Greece and Monastir. The Saloniki and Istanbul calendars have an interesting feature on each month's calendar page: the header for each month lists the name of a different synagogue in the city, thus allowing us to record the names of the community's synagogues at any given year and the disappearing of some at a certain date and new names being added at later dates. Already mentioned in the calendars from the late 19th century are Ashkenaz and Italian synagogues. Another interesting feature of some of the Saloniki volumes is a list of the numbers of years passed from important Jewish dates, such as the Redemption from Egypt, Destruction of the Temples, and the Spanish Expulsion.

At the ends of the Istanbul calendars, particularly the latter ones, are transliteration to Turkish of crucial Jewish prayers, such as the Kaddish, Shema Yisrael, blessings for the Torah, etc., which indicates a lack of Hebrew literacy among at least part of the community. The Istanbul calendars all begin with a table for boys turning 13 that year so that they can calculate the date of the upcoming bar mitzvah based on their Arabic calendar birthday. All the calendars also include the zmanim (specific times of the day in Jewish law), allowing us to understand the customs of these communities in these matters, which differ surprisingly from one place to the other.

With the destruction of Saloniki's Jewry during the Holocaust, the dissolution of Izmir's Jews with the establishment of the state of Israel, and the slow decline of Istanbul's community to emigration and intermarriage (estimated to be over 50% today), these calendars provide a window into the active religious and cultural life of these communities in their heyday.