The wedding of Sami and Ceni Sarhon

This is a photo of my elder son Sami’s wedding at the Neve-Shalom Synagogue in 1974.  I do not remember who the 2 people on the very left are, but beside them stands Ceki Levi, the bride’s brother, then her father Nisim Levi, her mother Beki Levi, the my daughter-in-law, Ceni Sarhon (nee Levi), my son Sami Sarhon, then I, my husband Izak Sarhon, a cousin on the bride’s side and my younger son Yusuf Sarhon.  The children in front are the children of the two people standing ob the left whose names I can’t remember. After the marriage ceremony that day we went home and prepared for the night.  Then we went to a restaurant-club called Lido in Ortakoy.  This was a dinner for the families only.  We ate, then we danced and that is all.

We had 2 sons.  The first, Sami, was born in 1951; and the second, Yusuf, was born in 1958.  Both were born in Istanbul.

When they were young, we used to speak French with our children.  However, when they reached the age of 6, we started speaking Turkish with them.  They were going to go to a turkish school so we did not want them to have problems at school with the language.  At that time we spoke only French in the family and that's the language they heard, not Turkish.  So then we had to revert to Turkish when their time to go to school came.

We had a Greek neighbor who lived below us at the apartment building we lived in and they had a daughter the same age as my son Sami.  They used to play together and Sami had even learned how to speak Greek from them.  I used to take the kids everywhere, to the cinema, the theatre everywhere, with other children and their mothers of course.

My elder son, Sami, finished his secondary school at "Tarhan Koleji" [a private Turkish school] in 1967.  He then went to Israel to study lycée there.  It was fashionable those days; everyone was sending their kids to Israel to study.  Sami also wanted to go, so we sent him and he left with a few of his friends.  He went to study electronics there.  He studied for one year but he was not happy because they taught him not electronics but carpentry.  So after a year, he came back.  He finished the lycée at Tarhan Koleji.  Then later, he was able to get into university and he studied economics at the Iktisadi Ticari Ilimler Akademisi [Economics Akademy in Osmanbey].

My sons grew up, they became young men, they had friends, they came they went.  My elder son, Sami married Ceni Levi in 1974.  In 1976 they had a son called Izel.  Izel studied in the Jewish Lycée.  He did not go on to university.  He did his military service and since he came back he has been working in the textile business.

In 1980, my elder son had a daughter called Sandy.  She finished "Kadikoy Kiz Lisesi" [private Turkish high school].  Then she studied tourism and hotel management at the University of Istanbul.  She has been working at the Swiss Hotel since she graduated.