SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (RNS) A cadre of Bosnian musicians have realized that with the death of Ladino music's most famous singer, an essential part of Bosnian culture was in danger of being lost forever.
Flory Jagoda, Keeper of Sephardic Music Tradition, Dies at 97
A charismatic musician, she sang and wrote songs that linked her to Jewish ancestors who lived in Spain until their expulsion in 1492.
Flory Jagoda, left, performing with Heather Spence in Potomac, Md., in 2012. She sang songs she knew from her childhood in the former Yugoslavia and wrote new ones in the Sephardic tradition.Credit.Dayna Smith/Getty Images
Published March 14, 2021Updated March 15, 2021
To Flory Jagoda, the language, rhythms and joys of the Sephardic Jewish music she sang and wrote connected her to her beloved nona, her grandmother, who lived in the mountain village of Vlasenica in the former Yugoslavia.