Rachel Amado Bortnick is a Sephardic Jew, a Ladino speaker, born and raised in Izmir, Turkey. She came to the United States in 1958 on a scholarship from Lindenwood University in Missouri, from which she received a BA in Chemistry. Now, Rachel resides in Dallas, and is retired after teaching ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) for 35 years. For many years Rachel has been active in the preservation and promotion of Judeo-Spanish language and culture. In the San Francisco Bay Area she founded and was president of Los Amigos Sefaradis. She is featured in the documentary film, "Trees Cry for Rain: a Sephardic Journey," produced in 1988 by Bonnie Burt. In 1999 Rachel founded Ladinokomunita (https://ladinokomunita.groups.io/g/main) a Ladino correspondence group on the Internet, which now has over 1400 members from 38 countries. She has served as the president of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society, and as the secretary of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies.

Rachel shares with us her life growing up in Izmir, coming to the US and "finding" and maintaining her Sephardi heritage through the preservation of Ladino.

Interviewer: Dr. Drora Arussy and Dalya Arussy

Producer: Moshe Singer

Executive Producers: Dr. Drora Arussy and Dalya Arussy Di Veroli

Musical attributions:

Vanessa Paloma - "Avrom Avinu" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqizmoj9n74&list=PLGhpKVCbiejTOe6Y1QYxiPWwg2mZt2R4w&index=2

Vanessa Paloma - "Moses Salio De Misrayim" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM1qeR-NV30&list=PLGhpKVCbiejTOe6Y1QYxiPWwg2mZt2R4w&index=1

Samuel Torjman Thomas - Judeo-Muslim Soundscapes in Morocco: A Tradition of Musical Dialogue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_gLMmJEfko&list=PLe9MY0_QNmDr8hsh2cae_RXuw9vhWqRF7

Samuel Torjman Thomas - Uncommon Commonalities: Music and Piyyut as Dialogue https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lBlcpUPxZ0WpI0VqeAtfodBAojegWoQV/view?usp=sharing