Anonymous
This dirge relates the tragic events that struck the Ottoman Jewish community in July 1826, when two powerful Jewish financiers were murdered in Istanbul on the sultan’s orders. They were Isaac Karmona, known as Çelebi Behor Karmona, and Isaiah Aciman (Ajiman). Both had business ties with the Janissary corps, which had been liquidated by the sultan a few weeks earlier, following the revolt mentioned in the dirge. After Karmona was strangled in his mansion, some of his family members were exiled. A few days later, Ajiman was beheaded. The dirge is modeled on traditional kinot, particularly The Seven Sons of Hana, a story of seven brothers killed by King Antiochus Epiphanes for refusing to renounce Judaism. This is why Ajiman is referred to as “the second one,” as if Karmona and Ajiman were brothers. One version of the kina talks of the mother witnessing the violent death of one of her sons, which explains the presence of Karmona’s mother in the dirge. This lamentation has twenty-two quatrains. As is typical for Sephardi koplas (couplets), the first letters of the first line of each stanza form an acrostic that follows the Hebrew alphabet. The need for a particular sequence of letters appears to have affected the logic of the narration. Thus quatrains sixteen and nineteen are evidently switched.
Image of Ottoman Turkish Jews from Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 12 (1906), 285. Now in the Public Domain.
The Ninth of Av (Tisha be-Av) is a day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the two Temples as well as numerous other sad moments in Jewish life. The day is marked by a 25-hour fast (from all food and drink) beginning at sundown, reading the Book of Lamentations, recitations of kinot (dirges, sing. kinah), and avoiding joyful activities, even greeting others. This kinah was originally written in Ladino.
A Dirge for the Ninth of Av
ca. 1827
1
Let us chant, my brothers,
this dirge together,
for God severed our hands
by this disaster.
2
We have become orphans,
fatherless children.
Let’s ask God to save us
from greater evils.
3
Çelebi Behor Karmona,
crown of the whole Jewry,
renowned the world over,
and Ajiman, the second one,
4
as we saw them murdered,
one after the other,
Our eyes filled with tears
streaming like torrents.
5
They came to strangle him at home,
while he was still sleeping,
“What is this fury about?”
They did not know, either.
6
“Come, my beloved mother,
to embrace and kiss me.
If you do not come quickly,
you will not see me ever.”
7
Gendarmes all over the house,
raging like a tempest.
Watching him through the window,
His mother’s agonizing.
8
“My beloved Behorachi,
you did not die of illness,
You left me all of a sudden,
never guilty of wrongdoing.
9
He was loved by everybody,
everyone is in mourning.
They took from me Behorachi,
never guilty of wrongdoing.”
10
Let’s weep and lament this misfortune,
the horror that befell us.
If we live a thousand years,
we will never forget it.
11
They threw her out of the mansion
and brought her to look at him.
They wanted her to see her son
prostrated dead on the ground.
12
There is no end to our tears,
We shed them day and night,
for we see that we have lost
the best among the Jews.
13
Anguish, wails, and lamentations
shedding tears, fasting, weeping,
is the lot of the Jewish people,
but our lot is the hardest.
14
There was nobody like him
in the whole of the Jewish nation
God deprived us of his presence,
put him in a grave too early.
15
His life was in great danger
because of the account,
that a minister1 demanded,
which deeply distressed him.
16
Let’s keep weeping and mourning,
lamenting this disaster,
let us turn to the heavens
and demand justice
17
for this man who served the empire,
who was merciful and gracious.
Since the Janissary riot
we did not have any respite.
18
His munificence was matchless
and his charity unequaled.
Everyone received his share,
but the Jews had more than others.
19
When he finished his account,
it resulted right and flawless.
Even so he was strangled,
and his brother sent into exile.
20
Let us pray to the Almighty,
that the Messiah might come quickly,
that we have the joy of seeing
the Temple rebuilt in our lifetime.
21
We will offer sacrifices
from now on daily.
We will see the Messiah
seated in his throne.
22
Let us pray to our Father
for the joy of seeing quickly
the Messiah coming in peace
and revealing the miracle.
NOTE
1. Lit., deputy of the country. One of the Carmona’s biographers claims that it was the bostancibaşi (lit., chief gardener; i.e., a high-ranking palace administrator), who asked him for a financial account and then went to his house with two gendarmes to strangle him.
Translated by Olga Borovaya.
This selection appears in a slightly different form in the Posen Digital Library. “Dirge for the Ninth of Av” appears in The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880.
Register for free on the Posen Digital Library (PDL) and discover these related selections:
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