The Sephardic Way of Thinking in the Novellas of the 1930

In the 1930s, in Istanbul, Sephardic writers like Elia Karmona, Eliya Gayus, Moiz Habib, Moiz Levi etc. published short novellas, of 16 or 32 pages, in Judeo-Spanish. Some of these stories seem to have been taken from the stories of folklore, some seem to have been adapted from stories in French magazines and some are original works of the writers. The stories reflect the Turkish-Jewish community`s outlook on life, on women, and on other topics such as ethics, family, intelligence etc. The Sephardic Center of Istanbul has been publishing a collection of 16 novellas found in the Alliance Israelite Universelle archives in Paris. This lecture will analyze these novellas from a sociological and social-psychological point of view not neglecting an analysis of the language used, namely, Judeo-Spanish.