Witnessing the Jewish century

The Spanish Jews (also known as Sephardic) were mostly settled in the Balkan region, after being expatriated in 1942. “Witnesses of the Jewish century” collects evidence of these Sephardic communities in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia etc, and their efforts to be integrated in the Balkans way of living, conserving nonetheless their language and their cultural identity.
The Sephardic history meets the Albanian one in many points. But the most significant happens to be during the XV century when Alfonso V king of Aragon and Naples gave an international support to the Albanian national hero, Sk쯤erbeu, who was fighting against the ottoman invasion. Ten years later the death of Skenderbeu, (1479) the Albanian resistance was defeated and Alfonso’s successor king Ferdinand welcomed in Calabria and Sicily almost 20 thousands of Albanians speaking “arb쳥sh” the Albanian language of the XV century. On the other hand, Ferdinand the Catholic, expatriated the sephardics from Spain, and that’s when they settled in Ottoman Empire (especially in the Balkan region).
Five centuries later, the Sephardic and the Arb쳥sh continue to play their music. In order to make them known, one of the most famous groups of the Sephardic music “Mashala” will be performing in Albania, along with the Arb쳥sh group “Akustrika”, taking the Albanian public into a pleasant journey from the sounds of the past to the sounds of today.
The Spanish embassy, in the framework of the Spanish cultural autumn, will be hosting a number of events, including “Arb쳩a days- Sephardic- in the other’s mirror”. On November 20th, the documentary, featuring photos and memories by the Jewish Sephardic communities in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey, Greece, and Albania will be inaugurated.