Kép
The people in the photograph: Luna Romano (Razon) - Menahem Razon. On the way to the synagogue.. I am waiting inside. Entering the synagogue in Edirne. Because my wife’s father passed away three months before the wedding, her older brother was bringing her to the synagogue.
My wife's mother Sofi Razon (maiden name was Razon) was a very religious and zionist person. She never said anything against anyone. She always protected. She was very religious. She did not light the stove on Saturdays. Muslim women who lit stoves would go around outside. She would call one of them and had it lit. She would never light a fire, on Saturdays.
My wife's father is Salamon Razon. He liked growing eggplants, tomatoes. They had a grapevine. On summer evenings they would eat dinner underneath the grapevine. In the home of my wife's family, they had a chicken coop, cats and dogs. Her older brother Menahem liked animals. One day he brought home a dog he found on the streets. It will stay in our house, he said. Later he grew so much, he did not fit in the house or garden, they made him a guard dog at the door. My wife's childhood was very pleasant. She grew up in open air, in parks. Her mother tongue was Judeo Spanish. My wife's mother did not speak Turkish well. They would speak French or Spanish most of the time.
He was very close to his family. He worked in the commerce of dry goods and notions. He had two stores. He stayed in one, my wife's older brother Menahem in the other one. She had a very good childhood, she grew up in a very loving family. She lived in Edirne in a wooden house. It was three stories. She has one older brother and one older sister. They now live in Israel. Nadya Behar and Menahem Razon. She had a very good childhood with them. My father was a very special person. He died when I was still engaged, very young, at 54 years of age. He did not see our wedding, our wedding took place three months later. My wife still misses him dearly. They would invite relatives on holidays, on weekends, on Sabbath days, and eat all together and sing songs, it would be very pleasant.
Our wedding was a little sad. My wife's father had passed away before the wedding. We were in mourning because of that. In our family, mothers and fathers are above everything. We were raised in formality, but attachment was more prevalent in my wife's family. In a family where everyone is so close, our wedding took place in an atmosphere of melancholy due to the absence of the father. Normally one would organize an evening for a wedding. We could not have the wedding even though we were wealthy. We were going to have fun but there would be sorrow in us. We married on September 9th, 1962 in Edirne Synagogue, we went to Istanbul by train that night, we stayed at the Hilton hotel.
