Selected text
At that time, before the Holocaust, the Jewish community in Pazardzhik was quite big – about 1,000 people whereas Pazarzdzhik, when I studied Geography, had a population of 14,000, then 19,000 and 25,000 overall because the town was a market center. There were people moving to the town from the villages all the time.
The synagogue was in the center of the Jewish quarter. They were in one and the same yard with the school.
What I recall very well about the synagogue was that we were there every Friday evening. It was quite a big synagogue. At least, it looked very big in my eyes. The women stood on the balcony, the men were on the first floor, and we, the children in the rearmost part where there was something like a sofa, something that was stuck to the walls made of wood and we cried and laughed a lot. When it’s forbidden to make noise you always find something to be noisy about. We either looked at the tips of our shoes or at something that was near us and all we were capable of doing was laughing. And the shammash passed by us like a real Napoleon and looked at the kids and if we were laughing too much, an announcement was made, ‘Eshua Danon’s daughter, be quiet!’ And you can imagine what happened at home when we returned with my father.
We didn’t have a rabbi at the synagogue. One didn’t come from Plovdiv either. There was only a chazzan and I can’t remember his name, and a shochet whose name was Ben Avram. They were both very intelligent.
In the synagogue there was a little, how shall I put it, a little structure called midrash. When there wasn’t a mass, the Jews could go there, to read. There were a lot of books, extraordinarily many books, and perhaps they were used by the people who wanted to study Judaism or religion. Later, a Jewish club was founded. Our house was near it. Our parents, after dinner, used to go there to meet friends. There were separate tables where different groups of people could sit. They drank coffee and ate a type of jam called white jam. People from different communities, Bulgarians, were invited to the club to read lectures. My parents were very excited by the lectures. They explained all kinds of issues to them, they discussed political and health subjects and for weeks on end they commented on how eloquent and convincing the lecturer had been.
There wasn’t a Jewish chitalishte in the Jewish quarter, but there used to be a town chitalishte called ‘Videlina.’ My parents would go there when there were concerts or some other performances. A little further from the Jewish quarter was Varosha: the garden in front of the Boys’ High School where every week there was a brass band concert. My father liked to take walks there with us very much – with mum and the children. I remember how slowly we walked in it. And we passed by some people, greeted them, like in the movies, stopping for a minute or two, moved on and, most importantly, we listened to the brass band, which was the special entertainment once a week.
There were also some confectioneries on the main street where my dad used to take us every Sunday morning but we sometimes went there alone.
The synagogue was in the center of the Jewish quarter. They were in one and the same yard with the school.
What I recall very well about the synagogue was that we were there every Friday evening. It was quite a big synagogue. At least, it looked very big in my eyes. The women stood on the balcony, the men were on the first floor, and we, the children in the rearmost part where there was something like a sofa, something that was stuck to the walls made of wood and we cried and laughed a lot. When it’s forbidden to make noise you always find something to be noisy about. We either looked at the tips of our shoes or at something that was near us and all we were capable of doing was laughing. And the shammash passed by us like a real Napoleon and looked at the kids and if we were laughing too much, an announcement was made, ‘Eshua Danon’s daughter, be quiet!’ And you can imagine what happened at home when we returned with my father.
We didn’t have a rabbi at the synagogue. One didn’t come from Plovdiv either. There was only a chazzan and I can’t remember his name, and a shochet whose name was Ben Avram. They were both very intelligent.
In the synagogue there was a little, how shall I put it, a little structure called midrash. When there wasn’t a mass, the Jews could go there, to read. There were a lot of books, extraordinarily many books, and perhaps they were used by the people who wanted to study Judaism or religion. Later, a Jewish club was founded. Our house was near it. Our parents, after dinner, used to go there to meet friends. There were separate tables where different groups of people could sit. They drank coffee and ate a type of jam called white jam. People from different communities, Bulgarians, were invited to the club to read lectures. My parents were very excited by the lectures. They explained all kinds of issues to them, they discussed political and health subjects and for weeks on end they commented on how eloquent and convincing the lecturer had been.
There wasn’t a Jewish chitalishte in the Jewish quarter, but there used to be a town chitalishte called ‘Videlina.’ My parents would go there when there were concerts or some other performances. A little further from the Jewish quarter was Varosha: the garden in front of the Boys’ High School where every week there was a brass band concert. My father liked to take walks there with us very much – with mum and the children. I remember how slowly we walked in it. And we passed by some people, greeted them, like in the movies, stopping for a minute or two, moved on and, most importantly, we listened to the brass band, which was the special entertainment once a week.
There were also some confectioneries on the main street where my dad used to take us every Sunday morning but we sometimes went there alone.
Period
Location
Pazardzhik
Bulgaria
Interview
Sofi Eshua Danon-Moshe