Alegría Bendayán de Bendelac


Alegría Bendayán de Bendelac is a Venezuelan philologist, professor, writer and Jewish poet. During her career she has dedicated to studying sephardic culture, especially the Judeo-Spanish language of northern Morocco. She has been a professor of French at the University of Pennsylvania and has published several works about sephardic traditions.

Biography

Alegría Bendayán de Bendelac is the fourth of five siblings, daughter of Moroccan immigrants from Tétouan who arrived to Villa de Cura, Aragua state. Her parents were Abraham Bendayan and Rachel Cohen of Bendayan. Soon their parents settled in Caracas. She married Rafael Bendelac on June 24, 1953. The couple had two daughters, Mercedes and Lisita.
In 1963 she emigrated to New York, where she worked as a French teacher in various schools. Subsequently, she graduated in French at Columbia University and then obtained a PhD in French Literature at the same university. After graduating, she began teaching at Fordham University and later joined Penn State University. Among her works are dictionaries and historical investigations of Sephardic language and traditions, she has also dedicated to writing poetry.

Works