Elias Ladino Ensemble
The Elias Ladino Ensemble is a New York ensemble that performs the songs of the Sephardic Jews in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language they carried out of Spain in 1492.
“The Elias Ladino Ensemble … mixes new and old, Western and Middle Eastern.”
“Joseph Elias did most of the singing and explaining in an appealingly gentle, folksy way.”
“… opportunities for Mr. Wilson, Mr. Khuzami and the younger Mr. Elias to demonstrate their virtuosity.”
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, January 11, 1994
The Elias family
Rabbi David Elias Cassorla came to America from Monastir in 1909. His wife, Sarah “Shorty” Elias, could not read or write, but she knew hundreds of songs by heart, and she taught them by ear. Their son Joe learned them from her, recorded her singing them, and spent his life teaching them, in his own classes and from the stage. Joe’s son, Daniel Elias, learned them from his grandparents and his father, and has led the ensemble since 2000.
The Elias family are tradition bearers. The family has a long line of rabbis in its history, and with it a long culture of teaching and learning. The Elias Ladino Ensemble carries that tradition on, continuing to be stewards of Ladino music.
Sarah “Shorty” Elias with a young Joe Elias. Shorty taught Joe hundreds of songs from the Sephardic tradition.
October 25, 2026
The ensemble plays next at a house concert in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, at 4 p.m.
Bring the ensemble to you
For concert series, festivals, universities, synagogues, museums, libraries and celebrations.
What is Ladino, and who are the Sephardim?
The Sephardim are the Jews of Spain and Portugal and their descendants. Sefarad is the Hebrew name for Spain. In 1492 Spain expelled its Jews, and Portugal followed five years later. Many of the exiles found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, in cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Salonica, Sarajevo and Monastir, where their communities lived for more than four hundred years.
They continued to speak the Spanish they had brought with them. Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, grew from the Castilian of 1492 and took in words from Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, Arabic and French. For centuries it was the language of home, of the Sephardic press and of song. The songs were passed down mostly by ear.
The Holocaust destroyed most of the Sephardic communities of Greece and the Balkans. The songs survive today.
As Ladino was originally written in Hebrew script, there is no single accepted spelling in Latin script. The below illustrates one transliteration and its comparison to modern Spanish.
Spanish
abrir
to open
estrella
a star
viva
alive
escalerica
a little stairway
comida
a meal
caminando
walking
nací
I was born