Manuscript, anthology of philosophy and literature, in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) translation, by Yitzchak David Bally. [Bucharest, Romania], 1717.

Written on thick notebook volume, manufactured specially for the writer. Each page is decorated with light blue ink, with the name of the owner and writer indicated in the margins: "J.D.Bally".

Most of the volume is written in Ladino, in neat Solitreo script. In left part of volume, preface in Romanian (in Latin characters).

The volume includes, among other things, a translation from English to Ladino of Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies.

The date of writing throughout the volume is 5677 (1917).

Yitzchak David Bally (1842-1922) was an educator, scholar, author and translator active in Bucharest. Son of Jewish Romanian banker and revolutionary Davicion (David) Bally. He was a leader of the Sephardic community in Bucharest, and graduate of the Rabbinical Seminary of Breslau. In Bucharest he headed the Sephardic Jewish school and published several textbooks on Jewish history and religion, including a Passover Haggadah in Romanian translation. As an expert in Ladino, he authored a book for studying the alphabet in Ladino, studied by generations of students. Bally was active in the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Bucharest and in the Iuliu Barasch Historical Society, in which he served as secretary and librarian. He wrote extensively in the Jewish press, mainly on issues of education, and worked to integrate Jewish culture into the Romanian context.

500 pages. 23 cm. Good condition. Some stains. Few tears. New binding.