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A kippah and a pile of documents (Getty Images)
JTA I can’t stop thinking about Flory Jagoda, Joseph Sassoon and Kitty Sassoon – three American Jews in their 90s who died last week. As an Ashkenazi Jew, I do not share their family backgrounds. But their deaths hit home for me, as they were among the last native speakers of endangered Jewish languages languages I’m helping to document before it’s too late.
Read this article in Yiddish
Flory Jagoda, the Sarajevo-born Holocaust survivor and Sephardic musician who brought Ladino music to the wider world died last month at the age of 97.
Jagoda was a lifelong lover of her native-langauge, Ladino. To many, she is the first name which comes to mind when thinking of Sephardic and Balkan Jewish music.
Flory Jagoda poses with her guitar and signature white accordion.
“With the recent passing of Flory, we not only lost a Ladino-speaking nonagenarian, but a Sephardic matriarch considered to be the
nona (grandmother) of the Ladino language,” said Bryan Kirschen, a professor of Ladino language at Binghamton University. “Through her music and language, she brought Judeo-Spanish to the world.”