Nissim Kohen in the nursery at the Jewish school

This is a photo from the nursery at the Jewish school in the Jewish neighborhood Iuchbunar in Sofia. It was taken in 1930. I am the second on the left on the second row. We did not study much in the nursery. We learned songs in Ivrit.

I studied in the Iuchbunar school. I also went to nursery school. We started studying Ivrit in the nursery school. We learned songs and fairy tales in Ivrit. In the first grade we had a teacher who taught us reading, writing and maths in Ivrit. We also studied Bulgarian. Until the fourth primary grade we studied all subjects, such as reading, writing, botanics, mathematics etc. in Ivrit. We studied in the mornings and the afternoons. The classes were mixed. Our classes were from 8 to 12 and from 14 to 17. We also had physical education. After the fourth primary grade, in the junior high school grades, all subjects, except the Jewish ones, were in Bulgarian. The Jewish subjects were learning the Torah, Jewish history and Jewish literature. We had both Bulgarian and Jewish teachers. We also had teachers from abroad. Those who taught Ivrit were mostly from Poland and Russia. Our teachers were very good, but they were not well paid. I remember that they were on strike once for not receiving their salaries. The salaries were provided by the Jewish municipality.

My whole education until the fourth primary grade was mostly in Ivrit. We spoke with the teacher in Bulgarian. There were some jokes about the meaning of some Bulgarian words in Ladino. Our class was united. I was in class 'A'. We were friends long after we graduated. The leader of the class was Mordohay Eshkenazi. He is sitting second on the left. When we started the second grade, someone hit him with a key on the neck and he fell ill with meningitis. Despite the efforts of the doctors and his parents, he did not survive.