Tag #126569 - Interview #78468 (Shimon Danon)

I completed elementary and secondary school in the Jewish school in Pazardzhik. We studied Hebrew and Jewish literature, as well as the Tannakh there. The other school subjects were the usual ones, the same as in the Bulgarian school. Until the 4th grade we also studied mathematics in Hebrew, as well as the Torah. I graduated from high school in Pazardzhik also – but from the Bulgarian one. At that time there wasn’t a Jewish high school in Bulgaria. The Jewish school in Pazardzhik was very interesting. There was a teacher there, Geveret Semo [geveret is Hebrew for teacher], who lived more than a hundred years. She settled in Israel. On her 100th birthday all her former students from Pazardzhik, who lived in Israel, prepared a great celebration. There were really a lot of people – now there are some 30 Jews in Pazardzhik left of the thousand Jews who once used to live there. Geveret Semo was a very interesting person. She only spoke Hebrew with her students. In the end her persistence proved helpful for those who left for Israel, as they had already acquired a considerable knowledge of the Hebrew language.