Sabat Pilosof in the Jewish school

Sabat Pilosof in the Jewish school

This is a photo of the yard in the Jewish school in Dupnitsa taken in 1928. Here I am in the second grade - third from the left in the last row. Monsieur Revakh is also in the photo, as well as some teachers. Aron Alkalai is first from the right in the last row. Of all these children only Aron and I currently live in Dupnitsa.

In Dupnitsa there was a Jewish school with a yeshivah. I started studying there. The school was until fourth grade. After that we continued in the Bulgarian secondary school. At the Jewish school poorer kids received breakfast with milk or tea. We were one class per grade. The pupils' number varied from 25 to 30 children. Our teacher in Ivrit was Monsieur Revakh, who had married in Dupnitsa. He probably had come from Edirne, Turkey. We had an Ivrit class every day. We didn't have school-organized visits to the synagogue. Monsieur Revakh taught us some songs in Ivrit. We sang them without actually understanding their meanings. We didn't have any classes in Jewish history and literature at the Jewish school. We only studied the alphabet and some words in Ivrit.

After the Jewish school I finished the Bulgarian secondary school. At that time we used to live in a Bulgarian neighborhood. Upon graduation I was to learn a trade. Already as a schoolboy my father used to send me to some friends of his as a shoemaker apprentice.

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