The wedding of Hen Benaroyahe

This is the wedding of Hen Benaroyahe, the granddaughter of my half-brother Haim Benaroya, daughter of his son Yitzhak. The groom is Yaaron Benaroyahe. The photo was taken in Tel Aviv in October 2001. The others in the photo are relatives of the newly-weds. After World War II my brother Haim took his family and went to live in Israel. He has a son Yitzhak and a daughter Rebecca. When I or someone else from my family traveled to Israel, we always visited Haim's children who live in Petah Tikva. My older granddaughter Matilda, who has been living in Israel for four years, sees them almost every day and they are her family there. My granddaughter Matilda is working there as a psychologist in a hospital in Petah Tikva. I mostly regret not moving to Israel. All my relatives and my whole family live there. My mother, who lived with us in Sofia until she died in 1974, also wanted very much to go there, but my husband Salvator believed that his place was here and I could not convince him that we would live a better life there. I went there for the first time in 1958 with my younger son. We traveled by the ship 'Georgi Dimitrov' from Varna [the largest port town in Bulgaria]. There was not much fruit in Israel then. My relatives had asked me to bring them some walnuts, almonds and flat sausages. I traveled with four enormous suitcases. There were 120 people aboard the ship. When we arrived in Haifa, I was amazed; I had never expected to see so many people waiting. I was met by my husband's sister Sarika. I traveled to a lot of towns in Israel then - Rehovot, Ramla, Tel Aviv, Yafo and others. I have traveled to Israel numerous times. When my husband's sisters were alive, I visited them. After that I stayed at the house of my brother Haim.

Photos from this interviewee