Sephardi Women’s Voices in Judeo-Spanish as a Portable Salon

Sephardi women in the Mediterranean, whose vocality was primarily confined to private spaces, used singing in situations of danger as a beacon to deploy networked connections of protection. Before the heritagization of Judeo-Spanish repertoire in the late twentieth century following massive emigrations from the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Balkans, female Sephardi voices were deployed as a manner of portable salon. This chapter demonstrates how women used their voices, and the cultural capital embedded within communicative functions of timbre, affect, volume, and silence to resist sexual aggression, assault, and coercion. Using two case studies from urban Mediterranean Judeo-Spanish, one from Bulgaria and the other from Morocco, this chapter unpacks how this intersectional minority deployed voice as a powerful creator of enclosed and safeguarding space. In these cases, women’s voices pushed their traditionally inner salons outwards, enacting a vocal protective shield semiotically prevalent in Sephardi communities.