Two Years of Los Muevos Ladineros

By Dr. Hannah S. Pressman

Kamina kon buenos, te azeras uno de eyos.

Walk with good people and you will become one of them.

It’s been my honor to facilitate the newest incarnation of Seattle’s historic Ladino study group. Since its inception in May 2024, Los Muevos Ladineros has emerged as a vibrant space of intergenerational connection and learning. With two years of programming behind us, I am happy to reflect on the progress we’ve made. 

Admittedly, I was not sure what to expect when I accepted the Seattle Sephardic Network’s invitation to coordinate the Ladineros back in 2024; after all, I myself am somewhat new to Ladino studies, and I am not a native Seattleite. However, I knew two things to be true: 

1) When community statesman “Little” Al Maimon offers you an opportunity, you say yes.

2) This could be a great place to workshop the new curriculum that I am developing for the American Ladino League (ALL), a national nonprofit focused on supporting the community of Ladino students and educators in the United States. Together with the Seattle Sephardic Network and the UW Sephardic Studies Program, the ALL is a proud partner of the Ladineros.

Working with Cynthia Flash Hemphill, president of the Seattle Sephardic Network, we put together a successful Ladineros launch event in May 2024, and then settled into a rhythm of monthly sessions. The current group of participants is strikingly intergenerational, comprised not only of native speakers who grew up hearing Ladino at home in the Central District, the city’s Sephardic neighborhood for decades, but also of children and grandchildren of Sephardic immigrants to the Northwest, UW students who did not grow up in the Seattle area, Jewish people of non-Sephardic backgrounds, and people of non-Jewish backgrounds—who are all drawn to exploring the Ladino language. This mesklatina (mixture) of participants, while exciting, also poses a challenge when choosing suitable materials for such a wide range of knowledge levels.

When designing Ladineros activities, my priorities are inclusivity and accessibility, so I bring translation or at least transliteration whenever possible. To showcase local resources, I often select texts that are part of the UW Sephardic Studies’ digital collection, such as the silabarios (primers) used to teach reading and grammar to Sephardic children in the early 20^th century. Locating each item in place and time helps to emphasize how far this language spread after leaving the Iberian peninsula—and yet, for so many contemporary students, this language feels like home. Another genre we’ve explored together is folk stories, particularly those collected by Matilda Koen-Sarano d.b.m. These tales are great for group translation activities, aided by my personal stash of Ladino dictionaries.

The Ladineros have welcomed several wonderful guest speakers over the last two years. Prof. Bryan Kirschen, Prof. Canan Bolel, and Fulbright Fellow Maria Papavasilopou shared their research on linguistics, superstitions, archival newspaper advertisements, and Sephardic music, respectively. We also had the pleasure of learning with my colleague Rachel Amado Bortnick, a legendary Izmir-born teacher and cofounder of Ladinokomunita, at the Ladineros’ first Zoom meetup in February 2026. Of course, we’ve attended the annual Seattle Ladino Day organized by Prof. Devin Naar at the UW; and this past November, five Ladineros members read poems in the 2025 Ladino Day program.

It takes a kazal (village) to run any kind of community program, and I particularly want to thank Jacquelyn Wiviott of the Seattle Sephardic Network for so ably managing the logistics involved with Ladineros sessions (such as securing meeting locations and arranging the all-important snacks and coffee!). I also deeply appreciate the partnership of Marilyn Israel at the Mary Schwartz Summit. This past year, while the Summit underwent some renovations, we took our show on the road and held Ladineros sessions at different synagogues including Congregation Beth Shalom, Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, Herzl-Ner Tamid, and Sephardic Bikur Holim. Thank you to these congregations for welcoming us. Mersi muy muncho (thanks very much) to the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle for providing the seed funding for the Ladineros reboot.

I am proud to report that the Ladineros’ mailing list currently includes more than 100 people. We consistently have 20-30 people attending each session, with many regular participants and a few new faces each time. More than the numbers, though, I am proud that this group is growing deeper connections with Sephardic culture and with each other. Muestro spanyol, our Spanish, is profoundly personal. People want to share what they heard their nonas say, or ask the group to help complete a refran fragment that they remember. This past March, while discussing Ladino words related to Passover, Mo Azose began singing a tune he recalled from his family seder. I welcome all of these memories and melodies into the room, and I don’t take for granted that we can experience the language together in person, learning from each other as we go.

One reality of working in an endangered language field is the loss of native speakers. Last year the Ladineros lost two long-standing members of the group - Regina Barkey Amira (1932-2025) and Jack Cordova (1929-2025). Ke sus almas repozen in ganeden, may their souls rest in the Garden of Eden. Regina and Jack attended many sessions over the past two years, and I observed them enjoying the atmosphere and helping others to understand the material. Ladino, and the Sephardic community, were clearly so precious to them. 

I’ll conclude by mentioning one moment that stands out when reflecting on my kamino (journey) with the Ladineros. Last December we held a session at Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, the historic Rhodesli synagogue in Seattle. I created worksheets to help spur conversations about Hanukkah, and the group broke into pairs. Soon a din of boisterous Ladino chatter spread throughout the room. Circling the tables, a shiver came over me: here I was, in an American synagogue founded by my Sephardic ancestors’ cousins and friends from Rhodes, and I was surrounded by the sound of Ladino.

[Dr. Hannah S. Pressman is a scholar of Jewish languages and literatures. She is co-director of the American Ladino League and the facilitator of the Seattle Ladineros.]