The Biography of Bejor Carmona

Abstract

In 1920 A. Ben-Yosef published in the journal Mizrah uMa'arab a Hebrew biography of Bejor Carmona (ca. 1773-1826), Jewish banker at the service of Mahmud II, which was killed by order of the Sultan. That same year, Ben-Yosef’s text was translated into Judeo-Spanish and  appeared in the Constantinopolitan  journal  El Tiempo. In this article,  it  is  provided  the  original,  and  until  now  unknown,  version  of  Carmona’s biography that was published in Judeo-Spanish in the  Salonikan journal La Nación ten years before (1910) Ben-Yosef’s text, and that seems to be its direct  source. It has also been included in this article, an analysis of the differences between the three versions of this text that first appeared in Judeo-Spanish, and then it was translated into Hebrew, and from this version, translated back into Judeo-Spanish.