Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on June 8, 2016

And what is a drinking party without drinking songs? As in other Jewish communities, drinking alcohol was part of the celebration of Purim, and an extensive corpus of rhymed, Ladino poems known askoplas(orkomplas) developed by Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Arranged in stanzas, often with refrains, sometimes as acrostics, and intended to be memorized and sung in groups during moments of recreation and celebration, mourning and lamentation,koplasdealt with myriad Jewish themes, including holidays, faith, history, morality, life cycle events, religious practices, folkways, hopes and fears, and politics and satire. Initially composed by rabbis, who sought to make traditional Jewish knowledge more accessible to the Jewish masses in their spoken language, and later by popular authors, koplasserved as a foundation of Sephardic Jewish culture for generations.

Perhaps the most famous genre ofkoplasdealt with the holiday of Purim.

At the Sephardic Studies Program of the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies,, we are fortunate to draw on our large Sephardic collection as well as the personal recollections from first-generation Seattle Sephardim whose families came to the United States from the Ottoman Empire todays Turkey and Rhodes during the early 20thcentury, to learn more about the songs and their role in the Purim celebrations.

Several forgotten drinking songs for Purim are preserved in two books in our Sephardic Studies collection. Notably, several copies of each of the two books have surfaced a testament to how widespread thesekoplasonce were.

Isaac Azose, Hazzan (Cantor) Emeritus of Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, shared with usKomplas de Purim: Saludar el Purim,printed in Istanbul in the Hebrew year 5683 (1922 or 1923). Published by Benjamin Raphael ben Yosef, one the most prolific printers of religious and secular books in Ladino and Hebrew in the Ottoman Empire during the early 20thcentury,Komplas de Purim, with its bright pink cover, introduces readers to its contents in an equally colorful manner:

And what is a drinking party without drinking songs? As in other Jewish communities, drinking alcohol was part of the celebration of Purim, and an extensive corpus of rhymed, Ladino poems known askoplas(orkomplas) developed by Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Arranged in stanzas, often with refrains, sometimes as acrostics, and intended to be memorized and sung in groups during moments of recreation and celebration, mourning and lamentation,koplasdealt with myriad Jewish themes, including holidays, faith, history, morality, life cycle events, religious practices, folkways, hopes and fears, and politics and satire. Initially composed by rabbis, who sought to make traditional Jewish knowledge more accessible to the Jewish masses in their spoken language, and later by popular authors, koplasserved as a foundation of Sephardic Jewish culture for generations.

Perhaps the most famous genre ofkoplasdealt with the holiday of Purim.

At the Sephardic Studies Program of the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies,, we are fortunate to draw on our large Sephardic collection as well as the personal recollections from first-generation Seattle Sephardim whose families came to the United States from the Ottoman Empire todays Turkey and Rhodes during the early 20thcentury, to learn more about the songs and their role in the Purim celebrations.

Several forgotten drinking songs for Purim are preserved in two books in our Sephardic Studies collection. Notably, several copies of each of the two books have surfaced a testament to how widespread thesekoplasonce were.

Isaac Azose, Hazzan (Cantor) Emeritus of Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, shared with usKomplas de Purim: Saludar el Purim,printed in Istanbul in the Hebrew year 5683 (1922 or 1923). Published by Benjamin Raphael ben Yosef, one the most prolific printers of religious and secular books in Ladino and Hebrew in the Ottoman Empire during the early 20thcentury,Komplas de Purim, with its bright pink cover, introduces readers to its contents in an equally colorful manner:

Saludar al Purim Buen Purim, buenos anyos sinyores, ke gozen kon gusto kon todo el deredor kon kondjas amores. Porke kanten estas komplas por Ester una de las flores, beved vino viejo i de todo modo de kolores, i al dio baruh u dar las loares, ke mos regmio de mano de angustiadores, por mano de Mordehai uno de los sinyores

Purim Greetings

Happy Purim, good year, sirs, may you delight with gusto, Together with those all around, with flower buds of love. Sing thesekomplasfor Esther, one of the flowers. Drink old wine of all varieties, and to God, blessed be he, give praise, for he redeemed us from the hands of our persecutors, through the hand of Mordechai, one of the men

The Sephardic Studies Digital Library also has several copies ofSefer Alegria de Purim, published in Livorno in 1902 by the well-known printing house established in the nineteenth century by Solomon Belforte (1806-1869). That such a book was published in Italy demonstrates that cultural links tied together Sephardic Jews in Italy and the Ottoman Empire during the early 20thcentury.

Rabbi Solomon Maimon of Congregation Sephardic Bikur Holim donated one copy of Sefer Alegria de Purimwhereas another comes from the library of the late Sam Bension Maimon. An inscription in the latter book reads, The material, poems, and prose-like compositions here were authored mostly by a certain Ribi Yaakov Uziel and by Ribi Yom Tov Magula and others. Uziel and Magula numbered among the most famous composers ofkoplasin the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century and their verses continued to accompany the celebration of Purim into the twentieth century.

Here are some other little ditties fromAlegria de Purim(See Sam Bension Maimon,The Beauty of Sephardic Lifefor additional examples):

(53) La vizindad adjuntavos, Beve i enborachavos, A baylar alevantavos Ke ansina eseldever. [Refrain:] Bivaelrey, Biva yo, Bivan todos los djudios, Biva la reyna Esther, Ke tanto plazer mos dyo (56) Beveelvinoa okas, Munchos biskochos i roskas, Ke no esten kedas las bokas, De komer i de bever. [Refrain] (58) No bevesh vino aguado, Preto, puro i kolorado i blanko muy alavado No lo deshesh de bever. [Refrain] (63) Los Frankos uzan pedrizes, Buen tabako de narizes De afera bilibizes, Ke es meze para bever

Translation:

Get the neighborhood together, Drink and get drunk, Get up to dance, For thus is our duty.

Refrain: Long live the king, Long live I, Long live all the Jews, Long live Esther the queen, That she gave us so much pleasure.

Drink the wine by the gallons, Many cookies and pastries, That the mouths should not be still, From eating and drinking

(Refrain)

Dont drink diluted wine. Dark, pure and red And white are praiseworthy. Dont stop drinking.

(Refrain)

The Europeans make partridges, Good snuff To enjoy dried chickpeas, Which is an appetizer for drinking.

(Refrain)

This Purim as you add a little cheer to your celebration, bring in a bit of Sephardic culture too!

A version of this piece appeared on the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies blog.

Photo credit Meryl Schenker Photography.

Link:
Sephardic Songs Add Merriment to Purim | Jewish& - My ...

Category: Sephardic
Tags: