Bound volume of issues of the weekly "El Instructor, revista sientifika y literaria" ("The Instructor, scientific and literary review"), edited by David Fresco. Year one, issues 1-32 (no additional issues were published). Galata, Istanbul, 1888. Ladino.

The periodical El Instructor, edited by David Fresco (1853-1933), prominent Ladino translator, journalist and public figure, was published during the course of 1888 (1st Iyar 1888 – 11th Kislev 1888). It features articles on literature, science, history, the Jewish world, and includes serialized stories and novels, riddles and quizzes, and more. In the main editorial in the first issue, Fresco writes: "After dedicating more than 13 of my best years to publishing the newspaper El Telegrafo, I realized it was necessary to renounce from it […] and I am beginning now with the publication of a new newspaper titled El Instructor" (quoted by Gaon, see below).

Rare. The complete collection of issues is held in the NLI and other libraries in microfilm only.
See: Dov Cohen, Thesaurus of Ladino Books, Yad Ben Zvi, 2021. No. 3480. • Moshe David Gaon, A Bibliography of the Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) Press, Yad Ben Zvi, 1965, no. 15.

The editor of the periodical, David Fresco (1853-1933), was closely associated with the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and was known to enthusiastically support the integration of Jews as equal citizens in the Ottoman empire, among other things by encouraging Westernization in all areas of life. This viewpoint is expressed in El Instructor, one of several publications edited by Fresco, the purpose of which was "to educate the readers about the latest trends in hygiene, child-rearing, nutrition, and the natural and human sciences" (Abrevaya Stein, p. 124; see below). El instructor and other periodicals edited by Fresco were comprised almost entirely of articles translated from contemporary English- and French-language periodicals, and offered Jewish readers "models of how to eat, drink, sleep, exercise, breath and behave" (ibid). They thus served as a platform for furthering the interests of the Alliance. Nevertheless, given that they were written in Ladino, they were perceived as intrinsically Jewish periodicals.
Fresco was criticized for not being Zionist, and for expressing hostility to the Zionist movement and its institutions, which he rejected in favor of the integration of Jews in the general society. Nevertheless, in the various forums he wrote in, Fresco defended the rights of the Jews, and dealt with attacks against them in Turkish newspapers, while at the same time displaying absolute loyalty to the Ottoman Empire, and after 1923, to the Republic of Turkey.
See: Sarah Abrevaya Stein, "Making Jews Modern: the Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 2004.

32 issues, bound together. 318 pp. (8-12 pages per issue; continuous pagination). Approx. 38 cm. Overall good condition. Stains (dark stains to several leaves). Minor marginal tear, some open, not affecting text, repaired in part. Minor creases. Some handwritten notations. New binding and endpapers.