King Solomon and the Golden Fish: Tales from the Sephardic Tradition

King Solomon and the Golden Fish: Tales from the Sephardic TraditionOrality has been central to the transmission of Sephardic customs, wisdom, and values for centuries. Throughout the Middle Ages, Spanish Jews were known for their linguistic skills, and as translators and storytellers they were the main transmitters of Eastern Islamic culture to the Christian world. Derived from a distinguished heritage, Judeo Spanish storytelling has evolved over a five hundred year historical journey. Constant contact with the

Orality has been central to the transmission of Sephardic customs, wisdom, and values for centuries. Throughout the Middle Ages, Spanish Jews were known for their linguistic skills, and as translators and storytellers they were the main transmitters of Eastern/Islamic culture to the Christian world. Derived from a distinguished heritage, Judeo-Spanish storytelling has evolved over a five-hundred-year historical journey. Constant contact with the surrounding societies of the past and with modern Israeli influences, making it more universal than other Sephardic oral genres. Told in order to entertain but also to teach, Judeo-Spanish folktales convey timeless wisdom and a colorful depiction of Sephardic communities up to the first half of the twentieth century.

King Solomon and the Golden Fish is a selection of fifty-four folktales taken from Matilda Ko