(Jewish Group) 35 years, this mother-daughter duo has run a radio show on Ladino and Sephardic Jews

[Behind the Aegis]

For 35 years, this mother-daughter duo has run a radio show on Ladino and Sephardic Jewish culture from Madrid

Matilde Gini de Barnatán and her daughter Viviana Rajel Barnatán didn’t set out to make Jewish history in Spain.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Matilde, now 85, established herself in Argentina as a prominent researcher, teacher and scholar of the history of Sephardic culture and the Spanish Inquisition in Ibero-America. Her extensive expertise and recognition in Argentine intellectual circles helped her become a close friend of the renowned writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Viviana Rajel, now 55, studied acting in Buenos Aires.

But in April 1986, as Israel was establishing its diplomatic relations with Spain, so did the Spanish government with its Jewish ancestry. Through its state-owned public radio service, the country set out to develop a cultural project in the form of a radio show to reintroduce Ladino — or Judeo-Spanish, an endangered Romance language spoken by past generations of the Sephardic Jewish Diaspora — as a vital piece of Spanish heritage.

It was “a gesture of friendship between Spain, Israel and the Sephardic communities around the world,” according to Viviana Rajel.

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How cool!