The Wise Rat Who Composed Romansas

There once was a female rat who lived in a library, and having read all the books at her disposal, decided to start composing romansas. So we are told in the first of the sixteen romances (romansas), wonderful little stories in rhyme, which comprise the children’s book Romances de la Rata Sabia (The Romansas of the Wise Female Rat). The book was actually written by Paloma Díaz-Mas, the renowned author and expert on Sephardic history and culture, and on the medieval Spanish romansa – which is also the form of our sung Sephardic romansas. This was her first and only book for children, and it was masterfully illustrated by Concha Pasamar. We just had to translate it into Ladino! 

Our Cooperative Translation Process

I called for volunteers from Ladinokomunita to take on one romansa to translate. I copied the entire book and sent a story to each of the volunteers. Dr. Dalia Kandiyoti, one of the translators, suggested that I invite Dr. Rina Benmayor, an expert on the medieval Spanish romansa, into our team. Her presence turned the whole process into a serious literary task: we formed an editorial team consisting of Rina, Gloria Ascher, Susanna Behar, Liliana Benveniste, Daisy Braverman, Miriam Sherman, and myself (and occasionally another translator or two). From December 2022 through March of 2023, we met over Zoom once or twice a week, nearly two hours each time, going over each romansa line by line, making sure to abide by Rina’s strict oversight to keep the rhyme pattern, with the same vowel sounds as the original. 

Certainly some of the time was spent in arguing about what word to use that would both keep the meaning and the rhyme. For example, leer (to read in Spanish) and meldar (to read in Ladino) do not have the same final vowel sound, and neither do aprender (to learn in Spanish) and ambezarse (to learn in Ladino.) What to do? Sometimes, changing the syntax – the word order – worked, sometimes adding an innocuous word like bien worked, and sometimes not. Also, our various dialects caused arguments as to which word is the correct one in Ladino. But there was no argument as to the need to Judaize or “Sephardize” certain references or allusions to Christianity. In one story the dog was a Hanuka (not a Christmas) present. In another, the immigrant kid in class knows only a few words of Ladino (not of español), and so on. We sent our finished product to the author, Paloma Díaz-Mas, who approved it all.

For all of us, this was a great learning and friendship experience. Some of us improved our Spanish, and some of us improved our Ladino, and we learned from Rina all about the medieval Spanish romansa format. When we were finished – and satisfied with – all of the sixteen romansas, we ended our meetings  And then we began to miss our meetings, and even our arguments!