What is it about?
This study analyzes a manuscript of 1,601 Judeo-Spanish proverbs collected in Salonica in 1936, just before the Shoah destroyed the Sephardic community. The proverbs reveal how oral traditions blend Spanish medieval heritage, biblical wisdom, and Turkish-Balkan influences. Beyond preserving linguistic heritage, these sayings expose social tensions through sharp humor - mocking religious hypocrisy, critiquing inequality, and offering both moral guidance and satirical resistance. The collection challenges our understanding of "popular" versus "scholarly" culture, showing how everyday wisdom carries profound intellectual depth.
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Why is it important?
This research preserves one of the last testimonies of a destroyed Jewish community's intellectual life, captured mere years before the Shoah. It demonstrates how marginalized communities use proverbs as weapons of verbal resistance against oppression. The study revolutionizes our understanding of cultural transmission by showing that oral and written traditions, popular and scholarly knowledge, constantly intersect rather than exist separately. For modern researchers, it provides crucial methodology for documenting endangered languages and offers insights into how diaspora communities maintain identity through linguistic creativity.
Perspectives
As a researcher, I find this collection unique - it's like hearing voices from a lost world. These proverbs aren't just quaint sayings but sophisticated social commentary that resonates today. The bitter humor about poverty and the sharp critiques of hypocrisy feel surprisingly contemporary. What strikes me most is how Révah's academic project inadvertently became an ark, preserving not just words but an entire community's wisdom, humor, and resilience just before its annihilation.
Dr Sarah GIMENEZ
Inalco Paris
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Paremiological Collection Intersecting Popular and Scholarly Traditions, Oral and Written Transmissions, September 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004730823_008.
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