Elia Kasavi

This is a picture of Elia Kasavi, my wife's maternal grandfather. The photo was taken in Istanbul. The Elsa and Klara Angel sisters lived on Ferit Bey Street in Talimhane. Their house was just opposite the Turkish state school. Later the school was transferred somewhere else and the building started to be used as 'Askerlik Subesi' [Military Department]. Their father, Yaakov Angel, passed away when they were children, so they had been raised by their mother, Fortune Mazaltov Angel, and their maternal grandparents, the Kasavis. Elia Kasavi, their maternal grandfather, was a money-changer and also the mukhtar of Talimhane. A pious but liberal thinking man, he was married to Klara Salti and had two children: a daughter and a son. The daughter was Fortune Mazaltov, who had two daughters and had been widowed very young. Fortune Mazaltov was my mother-in-law twice: when I married Elsa and then, after her death, when I married Klara. Kasavi's son, Rafael, was a veteran of World War I. He and his wife Rebecca had three children: Sara, Yaakov and Eli. Eli is today a member of the Communal Council of the Etz Hayim Synagogue in Ortakoy, a neighborhood of Istanbul.