Bouena Sarfatty

Bouena Sarfatty, married name Bouena Sarfatty Garfinkle (15 November 1916 – 23 July 1997) was a Jewish Greek World War II partisan, a writer of verse, and a renowned needleworker.

Life She was born in Thessaloniki (then Salonica) in northern Greece. As a young woman, Sarfatty was well educated. She studied couture in Marseille, and was fluent in French, Greek and Ladino. She was part of the high society of Salonica, being presented as a debutante.

Her collection of Sephardic music formed part of the topic of a PhD dissertation "The Ladino Song in the 20th Century: A Study of the Collections of Emily Sene and Bouena Sarfatty-Garfinkle" by Rivka Havassy at Bar-Ilan University in 2007. Ethnomusicologist Judith R. Cohen used Sarfatty as a primary source for her research on Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) songs of the Sephardic refugee community in Montreal.