Los "Suvenires del meldar" de Alexandr Ben-Guiat

The present paper offers the edition of a Judeo-Spanish text describing certain aspects of the meldar -the Jewish religious elementary school- in late nineteenth-century Smyrne. The author of the text presents in an ironic fashion a number of amusing situations and anecdotes which he himself had experienced as a boy during his schooldays. The work provides us with important data of a socio-historical interest that broadens our knowledge of education within Sephardic communities in the Eastern Mediterranean world.