Tiu Jusu and Other Sephardic Characters: An Image of Generations and their Language in Prose of Moafi

The weekly “Jevrejski život” (published in Sarajevo in the period 1924-1928) was an organ of Bosnian followers of the Sephardi movement. According to its manifest the weekly published many columns and attachments in Judeo-Spanish language, also them shorts stories of local authors. Among the authors like Laura Papo (Bohoreta) or Avram Romano (Buki), “Jevrejski život” published several texts of Moise Finci alias Moafi.

Basing on the collection of seven Moafi’s texts from “Jevrejski život” (‘Enkontro’, ‘Dolores’, ‘Atras tiempos’, ‘Bavadažas’, ‘Una letra no akavada’ ‘Mal de mučos’, ‘Micva’, all published in 1927) and one text from “Jevrejski glas” (‘Tonfilm’ published in 1933) the lecture will show the amateurish strategy of presentation of double-tracked image of Bosnian Sephardi Jewry and local type of families of that time: sentimental described older generations of traditional Sephardi order and younger generations under the influence of westernisation and acculturation. Much attention will be put on the language used by Moafi – as a literary idiom, as a sample of local Judeo-Spanish and as variants of language used by characters from different generations.