Salvator Israel's family

This is a photo of the family of my husband Salvator Israel, taken in Plovdiv in the 1900s. In the middle row is Leontin Israel, nee Demayo, his mother, to her right is Salvator's sister Rene and below her are his other two sisters - Sarika and Rashel. The other people in the photo are some uncles of his father. I don?t know their names. My husband was born on the 2nd of April, 1908 in Plovdiv in the family of the respected merchant Marko Israel and the Hungarian Sephardic Jew Leontin Demayo, who had lived in Budapest and Vienna before the marriage. They met in Vienna on one of Marko's business trips, they married and Leontin came to Bulgaria. My husband had five sisters - Rashel, Sarika, Rene, Elizabeth and Hanika, who died very young. After World War I Sarika and Rene went to live in Israel. Sarika worked in the ministry. She was very well educated and knew many languages. Rene got married to Iosif Israel, who was a first cousin of hers, son of her father's brother. Everyone was against their marriage, but they did it at the cost of not having any children, because of the blood relationship between them. My husband's father, Marko Israel, was a very strict man, but he wasn?t able to prevent their marriage. When they lived in Bulgaria, Iosif was a very respected lawyer. After World War II Rene, Iosif and Sarika went to live in Israel. Sarika worked in some kind of ministry but I don't know exactly which. She was very well educated and knew many languages. One year later, after they had moved to Israel, Iosif got paralyzed after a heart attack. Sarika and Rene devoted their lives to look after him. Both sisters and Iosif lived together. Rene had a pharmacy on the first floor of her house and so she could work and look after Iosif, who was bedridden until the end of his life. Rashel also went to live in Israel in 1948. Rashel's husband was Solomon Perets. They have two daughters, Lunchi and Hanika.

Photos from this interviewee