Spanish and Portuguese Citizenship for Sephardi Jewish Descendants: An Oral History Collection
Interview with Dafne Beri – Highlights
Dafne Beri: I learned Spanish mainly in high school because the French high school had great teachers from the Cervantes Institute in Istanbul, but I started learning Spanish even before that because my grandmother used to speak Spanish and I also went to a children’s chorus called Estreyikas d’Estambol. They used to sing songs in Ladino. I joined them in 2004. I was very, very young, and for six to seven years we spoke songs in Ladino language, although none of us understood it. And so, when I started learning Spanish in high school it was interesting because I was [sic] tried to participate in Spanish at school, but I would always say words in Ladino and the teacher wouldn’t understand until later when she realized that I was in this children’s chorus where I spoke Ladino without knowing the difference between Spanish and Ladino.
********
[From Part II of full interview]
Dalia Kandiyoti: So, you would say that being Sephardic or Sephardic identity, you know, that you grew up with you heard about, shaped your own identity or shapes your identity at the present in some ways?
Beri: No, never, I don’t identify as Sephardic. Sometimes when I’m walking in “Kapalıçarşı” [the Grand Bazaar], and they directly to speak to me in Spanish, maybe because I look Spanish, now I think maybe I still have some Spanish look or some Spanish ancestry, but other than that I don’t really connect with my Sephardic, neither my Jewish identity a lot. I think that’s my generation’s change of culture because I feel that we are the last generation hearing Ladino from our grandparents. Our fathers, our mothers they don’t speak Ladino at home. They know Ladino very well, but they don’t speak to us Ladino. So, I think if I had a small sister, she would probably never hear Ladino. […] We just take, me and my friends, my generation, we take the funny parts of the culture. For example, I spent the summer in Burgazada where in the Sea Club they have so many Ladino and French speaking grandmothers, and they always say during the time of Rosh Hashanah they always say “Bonne fete, canim,” or they use Ladino words mixed with Turkish, and we always used to make fun of them. That’s our connection with Ladino and Sephardi culture.
********
Beri: Applying for the Portuguese citizenship, many of us have never been to Portugal or to Spain before, so to be honest we just applied because it’s European citizenship, and we have the Turkish passport which is not valuable when trying to cross the borders, and so on.
*********
Kandiyoti: What about Ladino and Spanish? Are those just neutral languages for you or do they make you think about Spain, or feel something about Spain as somehow being part of you or close to you, or not really?
Beri: Yes I think, yes. It makes me feel closer to my background. Learning Spanish was never for me like learning French or learning maybe Italian in the future. It’s different because I identify myself with the language. I appeciate the language. I feel some kind of proud [sic] of having this Spanish culture, but not that strong. Because I didn’t grow up in a very strong Sephardic environment. I just always knew that I came from Spain in 1492 and learning this language makes me happy because I have this little proud feeling of having this Spanish ancestry and being able to speak Spanish. It’s quite nice.
Kandiyoti: Right, but the language itself doesn’t make you think of yourself as Sephardic?
Beri: No, because it’s not Ladino that I am speaking. Now I am speaking Spanish. I am not speaking Ladino. I can probably understand Ladino, but I will never speak it.
Go to the Spanish and Portuguese Citizenship Oral History homepage >