Rita Gabbai-Simantov (born 1935 in Athens, Greece) is a Jewish writer of Sephardic origin, known for her poetry written in Ladino.
The Nazis invaded Greece when she was a child, and in December 1942, her family managed to escape to Turkey by boat.
But after she married a man who preferred speaking Ladino and began working in the Israeli Embassy in Athens as a cultural officer, Gabbai-Simantov came into greater contact with Sephardic culture and the Judeo-Spanish language.
[1][2] In 1991, after the death of her husband, she visited Spain, and this contact with her ancestral country moved her to write her first poem, "Ermana Soledad."
[1] Her most recent poetry collection, Poezias de mi Vida, was published in 2007.