Sephardic Music “Menash”
Sing along with my grandparents
MY GRANDPARENTS / MIS ABUELOS.
“Having spent their early years in Salonika then under the rule of the Ottoman Turks, sometime around 1917 my grandparents, Riketa (Nona) and Judah (Pop) Pitchon arrived in New York City. They came with their meager possessions, their traditional culture of exile, and their rich proverbial linguistic tradition.
Riketa (Nona) y Judah (Pop) Pitchon, mis abuelos, luego de haber pasado los primeros años de su vida en Salónica, entonces bajo el domino de los turcos otomanos, llegaron a Nueva York alrededor de 1917. Llegaron con sus escasas pertenencias, su tradicional cultura de exilio y su rica tradición lingüística proverbial.”
“Marc Shanker’s ancestors chose to leave the country, or they were left with no choice; they had to leave so quickly that they were barely able to take anything with them and were forced to sell their possessions for next to nothing. But they did take with them something that doesn’t weigh any traveler down and weighs even less when a culture is predominately illiterate. They took their language, along with everything that was preserved by memory when there are few books in existence: their songs and proverbs.”