Tag #123777 - Interview #97983 (Janet Arguete)

Mari Sages was an educated woman.  She was a teacher.  When she came to Bursa as a bride, the siblings of her husband were not married yet.  They all started living together.  My mother’s French was advanced.  Her religious beliefs were very strong.  She used to light the Sabbath candles, she tried to observe the rules of kashrut.  The hardest days of our home were the days close to Passover.  My mother would clean the whole house from top to bottom and did not want us to enter the place she cleaned until Passover.  This was called “Ya entro pesah en esta kamareta” [Judeo-Spanish for: Passover has arrived in this room].  When it was the turn for the diningroom, my father would start getting upset.  Because he did not like eating in the entrance hall that we called kortijo at all, he used to topple the table over.  My mother, on the other hand, continued Passover preparations with a lot of calm.