The birth of any child is greeted with great joy, not only by the family but by the whole community. From the moment the expectant mother, la parida, announces the exciting news that she is pregnant she is deemed to have special status. Whoever she encounters wishes her a good and easy birth, escapamiento bueno. During the pregnancy appeasing any cravings she may have, deseyos de la prenyada, was a given. In fact, a taste, gostar por guesmo, of anything being prepared in the kitchen was and still is offered first to the expectant mother. (Rebecca Amato Levy comments that if the pregnant woman did not get a taste of everything, superstition had it that the child would always be hungry).
Nacimiento (Paridura) – Pregnancy
Contents
Kotar la Fashadura – Preparing the Layette
Five months into the pregnancy, a woman’s family invites all her female relatives and in-laws as well as friends and neighbours to attend a celebratory gathering to begin the preparation of making the baby’s clothes, often embroidered with silver thread. The cutting of cloth, meter tijera, took place while women sang uplifting songs, kanticas de parida, to the expectant mother. As they cut they also uttered blessings. Asina delarga komo es esta fasha, ansina kesea tu vida djunto a tu madre I padre, amen. Escapamiento kolay I bueno, kon salud kumplida, amen.
Liqueurs and chocolates, tea, cakes, and sugared almonds are set out on the best china, on hand-embroidered tablecloths. The cloth is of excellent quality and traditionally comes from the expectant woman’s dowry. A relative who is herself a mother and whose own parents are still alive (a good omen for long life) receives the honour of making the first cut in the cloth. At the moment of the cut, the pregnant woman throws white sugared almonds on the cloth, to symbolize the sweet and prosperous future she wishes for her child.
As women stitched and created together, they also sang — from memory — Ladino songs, or kantikas, about childbirth and love.
One is the evocative song for new mothers titled Kantika de la parida, (“The Song of the Pregnant Woman”), also known as Och ke mueve mezes (“Oh, These Nine Months”), which was ubiquitous in the region. The lyrics carry a celebratory tone, and there is no mention of the evil eye or any reference to anxieties surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.
The kantika’s refrain, which refers to the child ultimately being born, triumphantly declares: Ya es buen siman, este alegria, bendicho el ke mos ayego a ver este dia! (“This is a good sign, this happiness, blessed be the one who brought us to see this day!”) The refrain also carries an allusion to the end of the Ladino translation of the shehehiyanu blessing, which is recited to welcome in new experiences: i nos ayego a el tiempo el este (“Blessed is God that we arrived to this time”).
Videos
Avraham Avinu
The most famous song included in El bukyeto de romansas is Avraham Avinu, a Ladino standard today that few realize describes the birth and circumcision of the biblical figure, Isaac — hence its inclusion in the collection. Two renditions are found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vwE8DsKGO4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI3gQj4yhJ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaO60Ml-0ys&t=10s
“Song of the Pregnant Woman” Kantika de la parida
by Hazzan Isaac Azose
Sources and References
- Stella’s Sephardic Table. A comprehensive collection of recipes and traditions from Sephardic Jewish culture.
- University of Washington, Jewish Studies. “Sephardic Baby Shower”. Jewish Studies, University of Washington. Available at: https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/sephardic-life-cycles/sephardic-baby-shower.
- “Sephardic Pregnancy Celebration”. Kveller. Available at: https://www.kveller.com/article/sephardic-pregnancy-celebration/.