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A New York celebration of Ladino aims to bust the myth that the Judeo-Spanish language is dead
(New York Jewish Week) — The sixth annual New York Ladino Day — which aims to celebrate and elevate Ladino culture in New York and throughout the world — will take place this Sunday at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.
For the first time since the pandemic, the program will be conducted in person, though a livestream option is also available. This year’s theme is “Kontar i Kantar” — “Storytelling and Singing” — and will include a performance from Tony- and Grammy-nominated Broadway singer Shoshana Bean and a conversation with Michael Frank, author of “One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World,” as well as additional music-oriented speakers and performances.
“Music is certainly one of the domains in which the language is doing well and generating new interest and new music,” said Bryan Kirschen, a professor of Hispanic Linguistics at Binghamton University and one of the event’s organizers. (Kirschen was one of the New York Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” in 2017.)
Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, was once the primary language spoken by Jews on the Iberian Peninsula. After the Jews’ expulsion in 1492, they brought language with them throughout the Ottoman Empire — Turkey, North Africa and the Balkans. Today, the estimated number of Ladino speakers around the world — mostly Sephardic Jews — ranges between 60,000 to 300,000, from fluent speakers to descendants who are familiar with some words.
Sephardic Jews were the first Jewish immigrants in New York, founding Congregation Shearith Israel in 1654, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. (It’s still in operation today at 2 West 70th St., where it has been since 1897.) Sephardic Jews remained the only active Jewish community in New York until the wave of German Jewish immigration in the early 19th century, followed by the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews that began at the tail-end of the 19th century.
Soon enough, Ashkenazi Jews quickly outnumbered New York’s Sephardic community, though Sephardic and Ladino culture continues to thrive today. Today, the main hubs for Sephardic and Ladino culture and education are the American Sephardi Federation and the Kehilla Kedosha Synagogue and Museum, a Greek Romaniote synagogue on the Lower East Side, said Kirschen, and there are large Sephardic synagogues in Canarsie, Brooklyn and Forest Hills, Queens that still conduct services in Ladino.
Ladino, said Kirschen, remains “a very living, in some ways thriving language, interestingly enough, particularly since the pandemic.”
Ahead of Sunday’s celebration — which is co-curated by Jane Mushabac, a professor emerita of English at City University of New York and a Ladino scholar and writer — the New York Jewish Week caught up with Kirschen to discuss the program, his personal interest in Ladino, and how Ashkenazi Jews can help uplift Ladino language and culture.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kirschen, far left, leads a panel discussion during the 2020 New York Ladino Day celebration. (Courtesy Bryan Kirschen)
New York Jewish Week: How did you become interested in Ladino culture? Are you from a Sephardic family?
I’m from an Ashkenazi, Yiddish-speaking family. So I’m not Sephardic. But for the past 15 years or so, I’ve been doing my best to learn as much about and embrace Sephardic culture as I can, and learn as much as I can about Ladino as well. My own interest stems from learning languages — I’m a Spanish professor at Binghamton University and I have also studied Hebrew for numerous years. So when I first came across Ladino as this Judeo-Spanish language, it interested me for a number of reasons. Once I started to meet actual speakers, it became so much more than just about the language — it became about celebrating and promoting the culture, the history, the connections, of course the food and the music.
What is the origin story of New York Ladino Day?
The idea of Ladino Day came about in 2013 — to have a day when communities around the world would celebrate all that remains. Originally, the day was selected to be during Hanukkah. But because there is no real central organization that governs the language — though there are different institutions, particularly in Israel, that try to foster the language and help promote it — Ladino Day grew in many different directions.
These days, some communities celebrate in January, some in February, some still in December. The National Authority of Ladino in Israel has their own International Day of Ladino in March. But the important thing is that communities all around the world are committed to celebrating it in their own ways.
As far as New York goes, the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan started holding a Ladino Day six years ago under the direction of my collaborator, Jane Mushabac, who is Sephardic from a Ladino-speaking family. I had been separately organizing Judeo-Spanish celebrations at a synagogue in Forest Hills, Queens, so the following year we joined forces and started co-curating the program together and have been doing that ever since.
The theme for this year’s program is “Kontar i Kantar.” How is this year’s theme different from years’ past?
Last year, we did “Salud y Vida,” which is a common expression for “health and life” and which was fitting for the time. Like most of the world, we had to pivot for the last two years and hold the program online. That afforded different opportunities — we were able to bring in speakers from around the world in a way that was much more doable, and we were able to open up our program to the world. Normally, we like to focus on New York talent and language, but the previous few years doing online events we were featuring different voices from the Sephardic world, so many new connections were made.
Because of that experience, this year’s program will be back in person at the Center for Jewish History, but with a hybrid option. The theme is “Kontar i Kantar,” “Storytelling and Singing.” It will both acknowledge how important music has been to Ladino, and celebrate how, in recent years, there have been so many initiatives for people to get together to share their stories in or about Ladino and to sing in Ladino.
Most Jews in New York have an Ashkenazi background. What role or responsibility do you think Ashkenazi Jews have in honoring and preserving Ladino culture?
Yes, the numbers [of Ashkenazi versus Sephardi Jews] don’t match up. Still, Sephardim from Turkey and areas of the former Ottoman Empire brought tens of thousands of Sephardic, Ladino-speaking Jews to New York City at the start of the 20th century, but as a minority — as a minority within the Jews, as a minority-speaking language, etc. So as someone who is Ashkenazi, I understand the enormous responsibility that I have to represent this language in a positive and genuine way to others and to work with and uplift speakers of Ladino.
Like Yiddish, thousands upon thousands of Ladino speakers were killed in the Holocaust, and those who didn’t experience the same fate often gave up their Ladino to assimilate. So many speakers today, who are typically in their 70s, 80s or 90s — or maybe younger generations who know some words here and there like foods, terms of kin — haven’t historically been so proud of using their Ladino. So aside from research and teaching, I’m really passionate about encouraging speakers and semi-speakers to use their language and to take pride in their language and ideally, to give them a platform to do so.
Bonus question: What are some common misconceptions about Ladino?
Ladino is not a dead language — that’s something I’m very vocal about. There are all sorts of ways to classify and categorize languages, but as long as they are living, breathing, speakers and semi-speakers, the language is living. So Ladino is a living language, despite all the obstacles. There are speakers and there are amazing resources out there willing to share their language and their story with people.
“Kontar i Kantar: The 6th Annual New York Ladino Day” will take place at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St.) on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. A livestream option is available. Buy tickets and find more information here.
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The post A New York celebration of Ladino aims to bust the myth that the Judeo-Spanish language is dead appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Day I Hid My Star of David Necklace
Anti-Israel protesters gather at Museumplein ahead of a 6 km march through the city as part of a protest demanding a tougher stance from the Dutch government against Israel’s war in Gaza, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Charlotte Van Campenhout
There are moments when a small object can feel unbearably heavy.
For me, it was my Star of David necklace — a delicate piece, inherited through generations, usually worn without a second thought. But recently, for the first time, I left it at home on purpose.
I have spent more than a decade publicly defending Israel in the Netherlands. I am not easily intimidated. I have never believed in lowering my voice to make others comfortable. Yet years of activism have taught me something sobering. Conviction does not shield you from hatred.
In the Dutch debate, hostility toward Israel is often dressed up as principled anti-Zionism. The terminology sounds political, even academic. In practice, it frequently mutates into something far uglier. I have been called a dirty Jew, a child killer, a parasite. I have received death threats online. Eggs were thrown at my home. My car tires were slashed more than once. A dead pigeon was once hung on my door in a plastic bag, a grotesque attempt at intimidation.
The irony is bitter. According to rabbinical standards, I am not considered Jewish enough to qualify for Aliyah under religious law, despite Jewish roots on both sides of my family. Yet to those who despise Israel, I am more than Jewish enough to be targeted.
When I reported the harassment, I was advised to keep a lower profile. Perhaps, I was told, I should refrain from speaking so openly in support of Israel. That conversation taught me a painful lesson. Protection would not necessarily come from institutions. It would have to come from resilience.
Over the years, I have lost professional opportunities and personal relationships. I occupy a strange space. Too Jewish for some. Not Jewish enough for others. Meanwhile, I am accused of being a Mossad agent or a paid operative for advocacy groups such as CIDI. The truth is less glamorous. I am simply a Dutch woman who has studied history and refuses to distort it.
Still, something shifted recently.
I needed to see a cardiologist. A routine appointment, nothing political about it. Out of caution, I searched his public social media profile. He had shared and endorsed extreme anti Israel content, including propaganda portraying Israel as uniquely evil. Suddenly a standard medical visit felt charged.
That morning, I removed my Star of David and placed it on my dresser.
The gesture unsettled me more than I expected. It felt like surrender. The same calculation followed before an appointment with another medical professional, originally from Iran. Check social media. Remove visible symbols. Avoid potential bias. Stay invisible.
I am not proud of that instinct. For years I have urged others to stand tall. Yet when you are alone in a climate of escalating hostility, prudence can override pride. Health is not a battleground on which one wishes to test ideological neutrality.
The broader context explains why this fear is not imaginary. The Netherlands has witnessed a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents. CIDI, the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, recorded 379 antisemitic incidents in 2023, then 421 in 2024, the highest number since monitoring began. Police figures, using broader criteria, have been even higher. These are not abstract data points. They represent Jewish students harassed in classrooms, mezuzot ripped from doorposts, and families who hesitate before displaying visible signs of identity.
Each year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, including ceremonies marking the liberation of, we solemnly repeat the words “never again.” The phrase echoes with sincerity. But remembrance without vigilance is ritual without substance.
My advocacy for Israel does not stem from blind loyalty. It arises from historical understanding. After two thousand years of exile, persecution, and statelessness, the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in 1948 was not a colonial experiment but an act of national restoration. Israel, like any democracy, is imperfect. It debates fiercely within itself. It includes Jews from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Ethiopia. I have written extensively about the rescue of Ethiopian Jews who found refuge and citizenship there. That diversity alone undermines the simplistic caricature of Israel as a racist project.
When activists declare that Zionism is racism and deny Israel’s right to exist, they claim to be advancing justice. In reality, they are singling out the world’s only Jewish state for elimination. It is not surprising that such rhetoric often spills over into open antisemitism.
The consequences are felt far beyond Israel’s borders. Across Europe and America, Jewish communities report heightened violence and terrorism. The Netherlands is not immune. And so a necklace becomes a calculation.
Yet while I may occasionally remove a symbol, I will not silence my voice. If anything, the climate reinforces why speaking out matters.
Unity is essential. Jews and non-Jews alike must reject the normalization of antisemitism, whether it appears under the banner of anti-Zionism or any other fashionable label. This is not about suppressing legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. It is about drawing a moral line when criticism becomes demonization and when political disagreement becomes collective vilification.
One day, I hope, wearing a Star of David in Amsterdam will feel entirely unremarkable. An heirloom necklace will simply be jewelry, not a statement of defiance. Until then, even if I sometimes leave it at home, I will continue to speak publicly and unapologetically.
Because never again is not a slogan. It is a responsibility that begins in the present.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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History and Archaeological Evidence Shows Jews Were Pioneers in Learning and Education
Inside the National Library of Israel. Photo: © Herzog & de Meuron; Mann-Shinar Architects, Executive Architect.
The opening of a new building for the National Library of Israel was one of the events overshadowed by the October 7 attack on Israel.
The library, almost five million square feet of space containing five million books, did open its doors on October, 29, 2023. The impressive new building, with its state-of-the-art automated book retrieval system, is a far cry from the library’s modest beginnings in 1892.
That the library opened five years before the first Zionist Congress, and well before the establishment of the state of Israel, indicates the importance that the Jewish people place on books and literacy — and also the long connection between Jews and Israel.
In Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity (1998), Lee I. Levine makes the point that Jews were unique in the ancient world in reading a holy text at religious services and discussing its meaning on a regular basis. (Ezra the Scribe is credited with initiating the reading of the Torah at religious services, in the fifth century BCE, after the return from exile in Babylonia [Nehemiah 8:1-8].)
That Jews are widely associated with literacy is a widespread belief. In fact, the expression “People of the Book” originated in the Koran, as a description for Jews (and Christians). But how literate were they in Biblical times? Scholars such as Meir Bar Ilan suggest that literacy in ancient Israel was low, less than 3% of the population, even as late as the first centuries CE.
After all, with the exception of priests and scribes, why would it be necessary to read and write in an agricultural society? However, recent archeological evidence signals that Jewish literacy in Biblical times was far more widespread than previously thought.
Archeological teams from Tel Aviv University used computer-based analyses to evaluate letters written by a small contingent of 20 to 30 Judean soldiers located at a military outpost at Arad, near the southern border of Judea. The letters, in Hebrew, were written in ink on ostraca (potsherds used as writing surfaces) shortly before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BCE.
Computer handwriting analysis used machine learning to digitize, segment, and extract features (for example, separation distances, angles, slopes, curves) from script to identify individuals. A professional handwriting expert also evaluated the writing on the ostraca.
The results, published in academic journals (PNAS, 2016 and Plos One, 2020), show that there were at least 12 different writers. They varied in rank, down to the equivalent of quartermaster (much of the material in the letters dealt with provisions and supplies). Clearly, the society represented by the soldiers at Arad must have included an educational infrastructure capable of ensuring widespread literacy.
In Discovering Second Temple Literature (2018) Malka Z. Simkovich, Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, provides a comprehensive view of the extensive literary output by Jewish communities during the period of the Second Temple (539 BCE to 70 CE). While she does not refer to literacy per se, the variety of material she describes, and the volume of letters written between Jews in Judea and those in the Diaspora (mainly between Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch), suggests that the ability to read and write was common.
Some of the writings Simkovich refers to were found in the Cairo Geniza, a trove of more than 400,000 manuscripts, and fragments of manuscripts, discovered in the storeroom (the geniza) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat (Old Cairo), Egypt.
Most of this collection was taken to Cambridge University in 1896 and today is being digitized. While much of this material involves the post-Temple period, manuscripts from the earlier, Second Temple period, were also common.
The geniza, a uniquely Jewish concept, is rooted in Jewish law. Any old or damaged liturgical texts or ritual objects that may include G-d’s name must not be casually discarded. The geniza is a temporary repository for such material prior to burial in consecrated ground.
The material in the Cairo Geniza was unusual in that the material stored there accumulated for a long time, between the 8th and 19th centuries. It includes secular material, such as legal contracts, accounting books, and personal letters, along with Biblical texts and rabbinical writings, making it a particularly valuable historical find. But equally important, the existence of the geniza is a reminder of the reverence for the written word that is a part of the Jewish tradition.
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
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Tucker Carlson’s Huckabee Interview: Confidence Without Comprehension
Fox personality Tucker Carlson speaks at the 2017 Business Insider Ignition: Future of Media conference in New York, U.S., November 30, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
When Tucker Carlson announced he would be interviewing US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, it was clear this would not be a friendly exchange. Carlson, who some have speculated is funded by Qatar, a state that openly backs Hamas, has positioned himself as one of Israel’s fiercest critics in American media.
What followed was not the exposé Carlson likely imagined. It was a two-hour display of confident ignorance.
Yet much of the media coverage focused on a single distorted headline: Carlson’s suggestion that Biblical scripture implies Israel seeks to “take over the Middle East.”
That became the story.
It was also the least revealing part of the interview.
What went largely unreported was not Huckabee’s answers, but Carlson’s performance: his theological confusion, historical sloppiness, conspiratorial insinuations, and failure to grapple with facts that contradicted his narrative.
A Disaster From Start to Finish
Carlson opened the interview with a monologue that appeared designed to rehabilitate his own credibility.
He repeated claims that he had been “detained” at Ben Gurion Airport when leaving Israel after recording the interview, suggesting it was unsafe for him to travel to Jerusalem. He implied he felt endangered after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly called him a “Nazi.”
That was among the first of his distortions. There is no verified record of Netanyahu making such a statement.
Footage from the airport shows Carlson in the VIP lounge, posing for photos and interacting amicably with staff.
He claimed he was “detained,” that security “took passports,” and his producer was “hauled into a side room.”
Footage from Ben Gurion’s VIP lounge shows Tucker Carlson hugging staff and posing for photos.
So why did @DailyMail and @nypost amplify his wild claims to begin with? https://t.co/ZL6qd2hvn9 pic.twitter.com/Z8lEfgg5LA
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 19, 2026
This pattern — reframing routine events as persecution — serves a rhetorical purpose. It casts Carlson as a dissident truth-teller under siege. It does not withstand scrutiny.
Tucker Carlson says he was detained at Ben Gurion International Airport. The Israel Airports Authority says no detention occurred and released a statement backing routine screening. Footage shows a calm VIP interaction. Two narratives. One record. pic.twitter.com/EEGyybELSF
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2026
Another consequential exchange concerned Anthony Aguilar.
Huckabee directly confronted Carlson over his earlier interview with Aguilar, a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid worker who claimed he witnessed Israeli soldiers kill a young boy in Gaza.
As Huckabee pointed out, that account was later proven false when the boy was discovered alive.
Huckabee stated that he personally helped coordinate the child’s evacuation from Gaza, working with four countries to secretly extract the boy and his mother less than a week after the alleged “murder.” The operation had to remain covert, he said, because Hamas would have killed the child to validate Aguilar’s narrative.
And yet Carlson still entertained the claim as plausible, naturally failing to acknowledge his own role in broadcasting this fiction to millions.
For a commentator who brands himself as a skeptic of mainstream media narratives, the absence of self-scrutiny was striking.
Bethlehem and Basic Geography
Carlson cited Bethlehem — the birthplace of Christianity — as evidence that Christians are being driven out of the West Bank by Israel.
Bethlehem has been under Palestinian Authority control since 1995. Israel does not govern it, and there has been no Jewish community there for decades.
If the Christian population has declined, the obvious question is: under whose governance?
Huckabee raised precisely that point.
Carlson did not engage.
1/
The media’s takeaway from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Ambassador @GovMikeHuckabee?A distorted headline about Israel “taking over the Middle East.”
That wasn’t the story…
The story was Tucker Carlson self-immolating for over two hours.
Watch the clip.
Then let’s… pic.twitter.com/e5AvpTMGW6
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2026
Theology as Geopolitical Caricature
Carlson invoked God’s promise to Abraham — “from the river of Egypt (Nile) to the Euphrates” — and suggested that this covenant implies contemporary Israeli expansionism across sovereign Middle Eastern states.
This is a categorical error.
The Abrahamic covenant is a theological concept, not a modern policy platform. No Israeli government has articulated a program to annex the Middle East based on Genesis.
By collapsing ancient scripture into a present-day territorial blueprint, Carlson substituted provocation for analysis.
Huckabee attempted to correct the framing.
Carlson appeared uninterested.
Ancestry as Legitimacy Test
In one of the interview’s most jarring moments, Carlson questioned Netanyahu’s right to live in Israel on the basis of ancestry.
“Netanyahu’s family is from Poland,” Carlson said. “There’s no evidence his ancestors ever lived here. On what basis does he have a right to be here?”
Huckabee responded bluntly: “I’m totally unable to process what you’re saying.”
The exchange spoke for itself.
Framed as a critique of one politician, the logic extended further — implying that Jewish belonging in Israel requires genealogical proof acceptable to Carlson.
It was delivered not tentatively, but with certainty.
And then there was the subject of Qatar.
Carlson appeared surprised when Huckabee noted that Christians in Qatar are overwhelmingly migrant workers confined to a restricted church compound, with no Christian citizens and limited public expression of faith.
By contrast, Israel has approximately 184,000 Christian citizens, hundreds of churches, open Easter processions, and church bells ringing weekly.
Carlson initially leaned on a cursory reading of Wikipedia before conceding he did not know the details.
For someone positioning himself as a defender of Christianity in the Middle East, all while seemingly receiving funding from the Qatari state, the disconnect was difficult to ignore.
Conspiracy, Recycled
Carlson floated additional insinuations and conspiracy, including the absurd claim that the United States went to war in Iraq after September 11 because of Israel.
This trope, that Jewish or Israeli influence dragged America into war, has circulated for decades across ideological extremes.
Reducing complex American strategic decisions, Congressional votes, and post-9/11 security policy to “Israel made us do it” is not serious analysis. Yet here it was, presented as such by a former Fox News host watched by millions.
By the end of nearly three hours, a pattern had emerged.
Carlson repeatedly blurred theology into policy, questioned Jewish historical continuity, recycled war-blame insinuations, dismissed counter-evidence, and spoke authoritatively on subjects he appeared not to have mastered.
And he did so with confidence.
That is what much of the media missed.
The story was not Huckabee’s answer to a distorted Biblical question.
It was watching a prominent commentator unravel under the weight of his own thinly sourced claims.
Criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate. Debate over strategy is healthy.
But when interrogation gives way to insinuation, and skepticism morphs into selective credulity, the result is not fearless journalism.
It is confidence without comprehension.
And it was watched by nearly two million viewers in under 24 hours.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.