< Return to Video

Sol Matsil - background - Romaniote (Judeo-Greek)

  • 0:01 - 0:04
    I used to belong to an organization -
    Habonim.
  • 0:04 - 0:07
    [Interviewer:] Habonim, uh.
    [Matsil:] ... when I was a kid.
  • 0:07 - 0:09
    I said to my father: "I'm gonna make"--
  • 0:09 - 0:12
    My father was a rabbi
    and a mohel and a shochet.
  • 0:12 - 0:15
    And, I said him: "I want to make Aliyah."
    He says: "No way."
  • 0:16 - 0:19
    Because all my friends made Aliyah
    and they're still there.
  • 0:19 - 0:22
    Whenever I go to there -
    I've been there to Israel - I visit them.
  • 0:24 - 0:27
    [Interviewer:] They needed you more here.
    [Matsil:] Yeah, my father wanted...
  • 0:27 - 0:31
    I'm not sorry either because
    I met my beautiful wife.
  • 0:33 - 0:38
    No, I was born here
    but my first language was Greek.
  • 0:43 - 0:44
    And, then I...
  • 0:46 - 0:47
    My father was a rabbi,
  • 0:47 - 0:50
    made sure when I went...
    I learned to speak Hebrew.
  • 0:50 - 0:53
    He spoke to me nothing but Hebrew
    to the day he passed away.
  • 0:53 - 0:54
    [Interviewer:] Really?
  • 0:54 - 0:59
    My father was born in Greece
    - in Ioannina -
  • 1:00 - 1:03
    and he was...
  • 1:03 - 1:06
    His family was very well... you know,
    very well learned.
  • 1:06 - 1:08
    There was a... Ioannina -
  • 1:08 - 1:12
    the Jews were there for
    quite a few hundred years.
  • 1:12 - 1:14
    Marcia knows more exactly.
  • 1:14 - 1:21
    And, they had a rabbi in Ioannina
    and he died
  • 1:21 - 1:24
    and they chose my father
    to become a rabbi.
  • 1:24 - 1:27
    So, they sent him to Salonika
    and while he was there
  • 1:27 - 1:31
    he learned to be a mohel and a shochet
    in addition to getting the rabbinate.
  • 1:31 - 1:34
    And, that's it.
  • 1:34 - 1:38
    And, he learned Hebrew -
    he spoke Hebrew his whole life.
  • 1:38 - 1:40
    As a matter of fact,
    when I started to speak Hebrew,
  • 1:40 - 1:43
    he spoke to me only in Hebrew
    at that point.
  • 1:43 - 1:45
    I grew up in a Greek household
    learning Greek:
  • 1:45 - 1:48
    that was my first language,
    and then, of course, English,
  • 1:48 - 1:49
    and then, Hebrew.
  • 1:49 - 1:54
    And, later on in years,
    I studied Spanish
  • 1:54 - 1:56
    and it came very handy because
  • 1:56 - 2:04
    I ended up owning a factory in which
    97 percent were all Puerto Ricans,
  • 2:04 - 2:08
    and if I didn't know how to speak Spanish
    I would have been in big trouble.
  • 2:08 - 2:11
    In Ioannina, they spoke Hebrew very well.
  • 2:12 - 2:14
    I mean, those who knew.
  • 2:14 - 2:16
    And, of course,
    my father had gone to Salonika
  • 2:16 - 2:20
    and was ordained and he knew his Hebrew.
  • 2:20 - 2:22
    [Interviewer:] Was that also the case
    in Salonika -
  • 2:22 - 2:24
    did they use Hebrew as a spoken language?
  • 2:24 - 2:25
    I don't know. I think they -
  • 2:25 - 2:30
    the Saloniki - used Ladino.
  • 2:31 - 2:32
    A lot of Ladino.
  • 2:32 - 2:34
    And, that I know for a fact because
  • 2:35 - 2:37
    I belong to the Sephardic Temple
    in Cedarhurst,
  • 2:37 - 2:43
    which is a Spanish synagogue which
    is the closest thing to a Romaniote thing.
  • 2:43 - 2:46
    And, so that's the synagogue that
    I go to every Shabbat and holidays
  • 2:46 - 2:50
    and they speak Ladino.
  • 2:50 - 2:54
    As a matter of fact,
    they have a prayer - a bendicho -
  • 2:54 - 2:58
    which means a song which,
  • 2:58 - 3:02
    before they take out the Sefer Torah,
    they open the heikhal
  • 3:02 - 3:05
    and they read this
    bendicho del... whatever -
  • 3:05 - 3:08
    I forget the name,
    and in Ladino...
  • 3:08 - 3:10
    and they do it every week.
  • 3:10 - 3:12
    [Interviewer:] You spoke of
    the Romaniote dialect as well.
  • 3:12 - 3:15
    Right. I grew up speaking...
    it was my first language.
  • 3:15 - 3:17
    It was Greek.
  • 3:17 - 3:19
    [Interviewer:]
    That was the only Greek you knew.
  • 3:19 - 3:20
    And then, if it wasn't -
  • 3:20 - 3:22
    I'm the youngest,
    I was the youngest of 10 children
  • 3:22 - 3:27
    and my siblings only spoke...
    spoke in mostly English.
  • 3:27 - 3:30
    They all spoke Greek fluently.
  • 3:30 - 3:33
    And, I was fortunate:
    my father, you know,
  • 3:33 - 3:36
    it was Depression years
    and I had the time.
  • 3:36 - 3:41
    He had the... he was able to
    send me to Hebrew school,
  • 3:42 - 3:44
    and I went to a Syrian Hebrew school
  • 3:44 - 3:49
    because that was the only Sephardic,
    you know.
  • 3:49 - 3:51
    So, I learned how to speak Hebrew.
  • 3:51 - 3:53
    It was four hours a day.
  • 3:53 - 3:57
    And, two hours we would just read,
    learn how to read,
  • 3:57 - 4:00
    and read from the Chumash and the Tanakh.
  • 4:00 - 4:03
    And, the other two hours were
    speaking Hebrew -
  • 4:03 - 4:05
    learning and speaking Hebrew.
  • 4:06 - 4:10
    [Interviewer:] So, do you think...
    Do you remember Romaniote well enough--
  • 4:10 - 4:13
    Greek... Well, I still speak Greek.
  • 4:13 - 4:15
    [ speaks Greek Romaniote ]
    Do you speak Greek?
  • 4:15 - 4:18
    [ speaks Greek Romaniote ]
    which means: "I speak Greek."
  • 4:18 - 4:20
    And, I don't speak it as often, but I...
  • 4:20 - 4:25
    Once you learn it as a youngster
    it just stays in your mind.
  • 4:25 - 4:28
    [Interviewer:] But, the Greek you speak
    must be quite different from--
  • 4:28 - 4:32
    It's what they call [ speaks Greek ] -
    [ Greek ] means "from the countryside."
  • 4:32 - 4:35
    It's different from the...
    when I speak to...
  • 4:35 - 4:39
    I was in Greece, the only...
    I was there once
  • 4:39 - 4:42
    and I started speaking Greek to somebody
  • 4:42 - 4:45
    He says: [ in Greek ] -
    "You're from Ioannina."
  • 4:45 - 4:46
    They knew the dialect,
  • 4:46 - 4:49
    I guess the way we know
    a Southern accent or a Western accent.
  • 4:49 - 4:52
    They knew exactly the...
    [ speaks Greek/ Romaniote ]
  • 4:52 - 4:54
    I say: "You're from Ioannina."
Title:
Sol Matsil - background - Romaniote (Judeo-Greek)
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Duration:
04:54

English subtitles

Incomplete

Revisions