Regina Grinberg with friends from Maccabi

I am standing in the upper row, first from left to right, with friends of mine from Maccabi. On the back of the photo there is a handwritten inscription in ink: 'On the occasion of Pesach in April 1936.' The photo was taken in the yard of the Jewish school in Shumen. When we celebrated Jewish holidays we, the Jews, were exempt from school, but we also celebrated the Bulgarian ones. During the day I was at school with my Bulgarian classmates, while after school I did sports activities through the Jewish sports organization Maccabi, which 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.