Notes on the Literary Judezmo of a Hazzan from Twentieth-Century Salonika

Around the middle of the nineteenth century, abridged Yiddish versions of the halakhic guide entitled Sefer Ḥayye Adam, which had been published in Hebrew in 1810 by Rabbi Abraham Danzig of Vilna, began to appear. In 1861 a series of popular halakhic guides in Judezmo bearing the title Sefer Dammeseq Eliezer began to be published by Rabbi Eliezer Papo of Sarajevo. As characteristic of all rabbinical works in Judezmo and Yiddish, both of these halakhic codes incorporate rich Hebrew-Aramaic components. The Hebrew-Aramaic components of the two works offer numerous parallels, but also significant divergences. The lecture will describe and reflect on the shared and divergent uses of elements of Hebrew and Aramaic in the two works.