Singer, musician, and composer Flory Jagoda has widely promulgated and enriched the Sephardic musical tradition in the United States. Born in 1923, in Sarajevo, she was raised in a Ladino-speaking and musical extended family and a grandmother who sang Sephardic songs and recited traditional prayers. Flory escaped from Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia but most of her family perished, murdered by the Fascist Croatian Ustasha and buried in a mass grave. After the war, Flory made a made a home and family in the United States. Since the 1970s, she has dedicated herself to performing, recording, and teaching the music of her Bosnian childhood and her own compositions, including the globally popular Ocho Kandelikas. She had become everybody's nona by the time she was 80. Two documentaries and a children's book document and honor Flory's life and career.
Full biography at the Jewish Women's Archive: Bortnick, Rachel Amado and Betty Jagoda Murphy. "Flory Jagoda." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 23 June 2021. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on October 6, 2024)
