Las Tiyas

One of Flory Jagoda’s original compositions, this song, like many of her others, celebrates the family life she knew as a child in the Bosnian village of Vlasenica. This village in the mountains north of Sarajevo was for generations the home of the Altarac family, Flory’s ancestors. The settlement of Sephardic Jews in this region and throughout the Balkans dates from the time of the Ottoman Empire, where Jews were welcomed and valued for their skills after their expulsion from Spain in 1492.

In The Flory Jagoda Songbook Flory wrote the following about “Las Tiyas”: “The Jewish holidays were so important and so much fun when I was growing up in Vlasenica, especially those which lasted more than one day, like Pesah, Hanuka, Sukot. The whole mishpaha [Ladino often incorporates Hebrew words, like this one for “family,” but the guttural “ch” of the Hebrew word mishpacha would be unfamiliar to speakers of Ladino] would gather at the home of a different aunt each night to eat and sing, carrying on the custom of family closeness which had helped preserve our culture for more than 450 years. The names of my aunts reflected the lovely Sephardic tradition of giving beautiful names to their daughters, each with a special meaning: Luna-Moon, Safira-Sapphire, Estreya-Star, Paloma-dove.” 

Like “Yo Hanino,” this song begins (and ends) with two guitars playing a scale in thirds. The rhythm is 7/8, a typical Balkan rhythm that was used for dancing. Whenever we played this song or another in the same meter, Flory would encourage dancers in the audience to get up and dance along—and they often did!