A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe
The Autobiography and Journal of Gabriel Ari, 18631939
A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe
The Autobiography and Journal of Gabriel Ari, 18631939
Edited by
Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue
Translated by Jane Marie Todd
A SAMUEL AND ALTHEA STROUM BOOK
University of Washington Press
Seattle and London
To the memory of the Jewish communities of Bulgaria
This book is published
with the assistance of a grant
from the Stroum Book Fund,
established through the generosity
of Samuel and Althea Stroum.
Copyright 1998 by the University of Washington Press
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ari, Gabriel, 18631939.
[Vie judo-espagnole IEst. English]
A Sephardi life in Southeastern Europe : the autobiography and journal of Gabriel Ari, 18631939 / edited by Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue: translated by Jane Marie Todd.
p. cm.
A Samuel and Althea Stroum book.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-295-97674-8 (alk. paper)
1. Ari, Gabriel, 18631939. 2. JewsBulgariaSofiaBiography. 3. SephardimBulgariaSofiaBiography. 4. Sofia (Bulgaria)Biography. I. Benbassa, Esther. II. Rodrigue, Aron. III. Title.
DS135.B85A75313 1998 | 97-33415 |
949.90049240092dc21 | CIP |
[B] | r97 |
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and recycled from 10 percent post-consumer and at least 50 percent pre-consumer waste. It meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984.
Contents
Illustrations
PHOTOGRAPHS
Gabriel Ari, around the turn of the century, in Izmir
Preface to the English Edition
T his is a slightly revised version, in translation, of a book that appeared in Paris in 1992 under the title Un vie judo-espagnole lEst: Gabriel Ari (18631939). It contains the autobiography, journal, and selections from the correspondence of Gabriel Ari. Ari was born in Bulgaria in the last years of Ottoman rule, was educated by and became a teacher and major actor in the Alliance Isralite Universelle, the foremost Jewish organization of the time, and created and directed important Jewish schools and institutions in Ottoman Turkey. Upon his return to Bulgaria after ending his teaching career because of tuberculosis, Ari went on to become a successful businessman and an important notable and participant in Jewish politics. He also wrote most of the two volumes of the official history of the Alliance, Cinquante ans dhistoire, which appeared in print under the authorship of the organizations president, Narcisse Leven, and which was until recently the definitive history of the diplomatic and educational work of the institution. He also published a history of the Jews, Histoire juive depuis les origines jusqu nos jours (1923), which was adopted as a textbook for Jewish schools in France until World War II.
The public work and activities of this Sephardi figure became familiar to us as we conducted research in the archives of the Alliance for a variety of projects over the years. It was by chance that Aron Rodrigues De linstruction lmancipation caught the eye of Gabriel Aris grandson Dr. Elie Ari of Paris, who contacted him to reveal that he was in possession of his grandfathers autobiographical manuscripts. Writings of this kind are quite rare in the Judeo-Spanish world, and this provided us with a unique opportunity to publish and to analyze both the public and the private lives of one of its important personalities. Together with selections from his letters to the Alliance Central Committee about a variety of political and educational matters, Aris writings provide a special perspective on the political, economic, and cultural changes undergone by the eastern Sephardi community, in the decades before its dissolution, in regions where it had been constituted since the expulsion from Spain in 1492. They also offer insight into these changes from the unique vantage point of an individual life and throw light on representations of the self by one of the members of the first generation of Westernizing Sephardim.
Aris writings are organized into two parts in this book. presents the yearly journal entries that he made to the manuscript after this period until his death, again accompanied by a selection of his letters.
The publication of this book would not have been possible without Gabriel Aris son Narcisse Ari and his grandson Dr. Elie Ari, who provided us with the manuscripts of the autobiography and the journal, with the photographs and the genealogical data, and with all the information that could be of use to us. We also extend our thanks to Lisette Blottire (ne Ari), Mathilde Ari, and Nancen Ari of Bulgaria, and to Eli Arieh of Israel, who were kind enough to help us in this work by providing us with information and documents.
We thank Bernard Lory, lecturer at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales and specialist on Bulgaria, whose erudition was of immense help in our project.
We are grateful to the entire staff of the library and archives of the Alliance Isralite Universelle, from which we have taken excerpts from the correspondence of Gabriel Ari.
We thank the Maurice Amado Foundation (United States) and the Ministre de la Recherche et de lEspace (Dlgation lInformation Scientifique et Technique, France) for subsidizing the cost of the translation.
We are also grateful for the ever-welcome input by Jean-Christophe Attias.
A Note on the Documents
T his edition remains faithful to Gabriel Aris text. We have conserved his spelling of the names of individuals. We have also replicated his transliteration of Hebrew, giving a more precise one in a note when that seemed necessary. We have corrected a few spelling errors here and there. Gabriel Ari often gives two dates for a single event, that of the Julian calendar and that of the Gregorian calendar, which are thirteen days apart; we have maintained them. We have systematically compared the information in the narrative with that in the genealogical tree provided by the family and have noted any possible discrepancies. We were unable to identify certain names of cities cited by Ari. We have changed the place names to reflect the English usage of the time to facilitate the readers comprehension, giving modern equivalents in brackets or in the notes upon first mention. The principal cities of Bulgaria appear on the map; we give information in a note only on the smaller towns. Generally, we have been careful in our notes to give an accurate idea of the itineraries followed by Ari and his family throughout Bulgaria and Europe in the principal vacation spots and health centers. Finally, a few pages were missing from the manuscript that came to us; we have signaled them in a note.
The reader will find a map of Bulgaria and its neighboring regions and the immediate genealogy of Gabriel Ari at the beginning of the book.
