Regina Grinberg and friends on the 'Bridge of the Sighs'

Here I am, the second from right to left in the first row, with friends of mine from Maccabi in the Jewish neighborhood. We are on the 'Bridge of the Sighs.' You can see Tumbul Mosque behind us. We often met there in order to go to Maccabi. In the upper left corner of the back of the photo, the date 'October 1939' is written in pencil. Starting in middle school I did sports activities through Maccabi, a Jewish sports organization that I visited from the age of 14 to the age of 17. Maccabi was mostly a sports organization, and I loved physical exercises. Unfortunately, and I do not know exactly why, the organization slowly died away over the years as many of the original supervisors left for Palestine. Beyond Maccabi there were precious few Jewish civic organizations in Shumen. There were a few Betar members in town, but they were not popular and could not attract young people. There was also a WIZO branch, of which my mother was a member, but I cannot say anything about this organization. I remember that we did some sort of charity project once, but I do not remember why. In my last years of high school I tried joining Hashomer Hatzair, but I did not like it. I thought that they were too limited. They agitated us all the time, asking ?when shall we go to Israel, when shall we go to Palestine?? Despite all of this rhetoric, not one of them left. I thought they were very hypocritical, and I subsequently stopped attending their functions.