Faivel and Shoshana Fridman

This is a wedding picture of Faivel and Shoshana Fridman in Israel.They emigrated in 1948. Before their emigration to Israel my brother and his girlfriend got married in Sofia also, but I don’t remember exactly when it happened. My younger brother Faivel was born in 1928. He is a constructor. Today they have a detached house in Tel Aviv. They are satisfied. And they are well-off. Shoshana has long years worked as a hostess in a Bulgarian old people's home in Rishon Lezion. Shraga and Shoshana have three children: Pnina, Hanita and David. Their children have also three children each.

I remember the following event. Once my yonger brother Faivel and I went to school (we attended one and the same school in Sofia). I was then in the forth grade while he was in the first. These days we were allotted snacks in the breaks at school and I still think it's a good thing to do in the school breaks. All right, but it was Yom Kippur then. Faivel went to take his snack and I shouted at him 'You mustn't. How can you eat on Kippur?' and I threw his breakfast away. Now I think what I did was very cruel to the small Faivel.

Our parents are Yosif and Blanche Fridman, they both moved to Israel and are no longer alive. They were relatively religious, which means that they observed the Jewish traditions, but not every single detail of them. My father was of Ashkenazi origin, that is a Russian Jew, and my mother Blanche Israel is of the Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria. After they left for Israel, they lived in the town of Yagur.

Our family was often forced to move from one place to another, because it was difficult for our father to find a permanent job. That is why my brothers and I were born in different places in Bulgaria. For example I was born in the village of Slatina, near Sofia (1925) but my elder brother Ruben (1923-1999) was born in Sofia and my younger brother Shraga was born in the village of Karamanovo, Svishtov region.

Photos from this interviewee