Rachel Amado Bortnick
Rachel Amado Bortnick was born and raised in Izmir, Turkey, in a Ladino-speaking Sephardic family. She came to the United States in 1958 on a scholarship to Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, from which she has a B.A. in chemistry. She met Bernard Bortnick in St. Louis and, after their marriage in Izmir, the couple lived in Holland, in Israel, and several cities in the United States before settling in Dallas, Texas in 1988. After a short career in chemistry, Rachel went on to teach ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) for 35 years.
Wherever she has lived in the United States, Rachel has been active in promoting Sephardic culture and Ladino language. In the 1980s she founded and headed the organization for Ladino speakers, Los Amigos Sefaradis, and was featured in the documentary film, Trees Cry for Rain: A Sephardic Journey, produced in 1988, and shown in Film festivals around the world. In 1999 she founded Ladinokomunita (https://ladinokomunita.groups.io/) a correspondence group for Ladino on the Internet, which is still going strong with nearly 1500 members from 32 countries. In Dallas she was instrumental in establishing the yearly observance of International Day of Ladino at Southern Methodist University. Rachel has served as the secretary of the Society of Crypto-Judaic Studies, and as the president of Dallas Jewish Historical Society.
She continues to write articles and to lecture about Sephardic culture and Ladino, or Judeo- Spanish, language.