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Most of the Bulgarian Jews came from Spain and so did my ancestors. [1] Far back in the 15th century Jews were persecuted from Spain in 1492 by the royals Fernando and Isabella, because they refused to adopt Christianity. Some of the Jews sailed across the Mediterranean Sea in the direction of North Africa, others passed through Italy and France. A significant part of them settled on the Balkan Peninsula. They were all from the Sephardi group. [2] That’s why all Jews in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia and former Yugoslavia speak Ladino [3] and not Yiddish, for example [the language of the Ashkenazi Jews, who live in Russia, Romania, Germany, Poland and the USA] The nice thing is that all Jews on the Balkan Peninsula can communicate with each other in Ladino. That language is a kind of medieval Spanish, the so-called ‘language of Miguel de Cervantes’ [4] which does not resemble modern-day Spanish.
Interview
Gitli Alhalel