The Jewish Municipality in Sarajevo announced that Moris Albahari, a Sarajevo citizen and Sephardic Jew, and one of the last speakers of the Ladino language, died on Saturday.
In a post on the Facebook page, the Jewish Municipality emphasized that Albahari died at the age of 93.
”We express our sincere condolences to his family, many friends, neighbors, and everyone who loved him. Tenuhamu min asamajim im sear avele Cijon vIrusalajim (may heaven comfort you, together with all those who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem),” the post states.
Also, in the farewell, the Jewish Municipality described what kind of man Uncle Moco was, as many called him.
”The way uncle Moco, as we who loved him called him, was in relation to others is perhaps best illustrated by his words given in one of the interviews. I especially want the doors of our community to be open to all well-intentioned fellow citizens, regardless of their religion or nationality. I always welcome them with open arms in the desire to turn senseless hatred into love between people. My credo is best expressed by one of the wonderful sayings from Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers), which is a tractate from the Mishnah: ”Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving the creatures and bringing them closer to Torah”,” they announced.
To recall, Moris Albahari became known to the general public in 2016 when the film ”Saved by Language” was screened.
It is the true story of Moris Albahari, a Bosnian Sephardi who grew up in Sarajevo, and how his knowledge of Ladino, Judeo-Spanish, his mother tongue, saved him during the Holocaust.
”It is a language that belongs to the Romance group, and Albahari spoke that way to the Italian soldiers who protected him. The whole film is actually an ode to a language that is slowly being lost, and we in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are trying to protect and preserve it,” said Jakob Finci at the time.
Moreover, in addition to Albahari and Finci, the remaining speakers of the Ladino language appear in that film, namely David Kamhi and Ester Kaveson Debevec.
During the film, Albahari described how the Ladino language saved his life many times during World War II.
”I met a Latin American pilot in Drvar, who thought I was his enemy. I asked him if he spoke Spanish, and he said yes. I spoke to him in Ladino. It was the only way of communication,”Albahari said in the documentary.
