Tag #138631 - Interview #98186 (Matilda Ninyo)

My maternal grandmother was Mazal Levi and she lived with my uncle Aron in Plovdiv. She could speak only Ladino [2]. She used to wear shamia [from the Turkish word ‘şame’: kerchief] and she was always dressed in black because she was a widow. My grandfather had died in Karnobat long before I was born, so I don’t know what his occupation was. My grandmother used to wear the usual for the old people by that time, long black skirts with a blouse and a jacket. She was a woman of fair complexion with beautiful blue eyes. Sometimes, my cousins and I used to tease her saying things in Bulgarian that we knew she couldn’t understand. Her reaction was always very interesting. She used to tell us to stop in Ladino. By that time, we had already become students and had learnt a lot of new things, which were far different from our family traditions and habits. My grandmother was not able to understand us, but she could accept it. My uncle’s family moved to Israel in 1949 and my grandmother went with them. One of my cousins became a bank official and the other one was a housewife. Aunt Dina got a mental disease after her son Zhak died. After their departure, I had no contact with them for a long period of time. I managed to meet with them during my first visit to Israel in 1995. By that time, my uncle and aunt had gone very old and my grandmother was dead. My cousins told me she couldn’t adapt to the new environment. She couldn’t understand the language and she couldn’t stand the different climate. The younger cousin Lily graduated from the high school in Tel Aviv and then she worked at the accounting department of the university in the same city. She was very eager to learn new things and she has traveled a lot round the world. The other cousin of mine, Rebeka, graduated from the same high school in Tel Aviv, but her husband had a successful career at one of the local banks, so he didn’t want her to work. Practically, all what she’s been engaged in was the housework. She has two children and grandchildren.