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Hello, I'm Nitsana Bellehsen.
I'm interviewing Mazal Seri née Levi.
Today is March 10th, 2011.
We're in Mazal Feldman's home, in Kibbutz Sdot Yam.
Our cameraman is Dror Isman.
Hello, Mazal.
Please state the time and place of your birth
and your name.
My name is Mazal,
Levi at the time.
I was born in the Old City of Jerusalem.
That's it.
What year? -1...
My date of birth is:
April 1st, 1937.
How did your family come to the Old City?
Where did they come from?
My father was from Turkey
and my mother from Persia.
I don't know much,
but the story is more complicated.
There was a big age-gap between them.
My father's family
adopted my mother, who was an orphan.
The story is that my father
said that when she grew up,
she was only 13,
he'd marry her.
He was 20 years older than her.
That's it.
That gap affected all areas of life.
How so?
The age gap.
My mother,
with nine children,
you might say,
she supported us herself.
She worked in many places to support the family.
She gave birth every year or so.
Back then, it wasn't an option.
I...
I'd like to talk about my father separately
and separately, of course, about on my mother.
Just let me understand the story
behind their marriage.
When was your mother adopted
by your father's family?
Since childhood.
As a child,
she lived in an orphanage.
My father's family adopted her.
They raised her,
and she married at 13.
Your father waited for her,
until she... -Yes.
He said he'd wait until she was grown.
"Grown" meant 13, you see.
And so he did.
My father had another wife, though.
Another wife. -At the same time?
Yes. And...
we thought she was our grandmother.
She wasn't. I only found out...
when I was 8, I think,
that she wasn't.
She'd visit on Shabbat,
and we'd serve her,
honor her, and call her "Grandma."
We never knew
she was my father's first wife.
She didn't live with us.
My mother was very young.
Young and beautiful.
Beautiful.
Yes.
Did his first wife have children? -Yes.
A boy and a girl.
They were part of the family.
On Shabbat and holidays.
They were part of the family.
I only found out later
that they were my siblings.
I didn't know anything.
We weren't told...
the history, as we know it today.
No one told us.
I found out much later, about my two half-siblings,
on my father's side.
My mother had one child after another,
all while working very hard
to support 9 kids.
Your father was married to two women at the same time?
No.
He divorced his first wife?
I don't know,
if that was possible,
if divorce existed.
He didn't divorce.
He married a young girl.
13. I still can't believe it.
It's unbelievable. Things were different...
How is it possible?
My mother says she...
wasn't a woman yet.
I can't speak of the details.
How developed she was.
She says she got pregnant, and then started having babies,
non-stop.
One pregnancy after another.
9 children.
I'm in the middle.
I have a brother,
a year and a half younger than me.
He lives in Jerusalem. We're very close.
I have...
I had a younger sister who drowned.
She was 21.
She drowned in the ocean, near Bat Yam.
Can you name all your siblings
and tell us about them?
So we can document it.
Alright.
There's my brother Ephraim.
Should I say something about him?
Yes.
He was the man of the house.
My father was an old man,
he didn't function as a father.
Ephraim was the dominant brother.
He helped out, went out to work,
as a boy, to help our mother.
When we talk about...
maybe we won't talk about the war,
but two of my brothers were taken prisoner.
Yes.
The second brother is named Shimon.
After the war, he became religious.
He's very intelligent,
introverted.
He was different from the rest. From me.
That's what I can say about him.
I have a sister named Simcha.
She was...
she took care of us, when Mother was working.
We hardly ever saw her,
only in the late afternoon.
My sister Simcha took care of us.
Raised us, fed us.
Cooked. She just...
Her too,
I was very...
impressed with her.
How could she raise us?
She was a young girl herself.
And my brother...
Meir. He died of cancer.
He lived on a kibbutz.
He was in the Nahal,
and lived in Kibbutz Neve Eitan.
He died of lung cancer.
After Meir
was my sister Naomi.
She's the one I was closest to.
We were good friends.
Naomi worked in...
education.
She worked
with preschoolers.
She passed away. Most of my siblings have.
She had brain cancer.
Yes.
That was hard. I'm still having a hard time.
I had another sister, Aviva.
Aviva...
cared for the house.
She was the one who...
liked cleaning and tidying.
She was always cleaning.
I'm not like that.
She was introverted, too.
Very introverted.
She was in an accident
and suffered brain-damage.
She married a kibbutznik.
They loved her there.
They separated,
and they moved to Jerusalem.
Her husband was a tyrant.
And ended up committing suicide.
He became disabled, then killed himself.
A terrible situation.
My sister died of cardiac arrest
in her sleep.
Her grandchildren were in bed with her. Terrible.
These tragedies...
life is hard.
Then there's me.
I was the spoiled one.
I was given no chores.
Mazal was spoiled. My mother made sure...
after finishing elementary school,
my mother insisted I learn a trade.
She forced me,
singled me out for some reason.
I really don't know why.
So I went to school.
I studied at Beit HaChalutzot in Jerusalem.
I went there for two years,
but eventually ran away,
because things were hard.
I moved to Kibbutz Nahsholim, trained with the Nahal.
We trained for 3 years.
We grew up and studied.
I forgot about the work. I learned sewing and pattern cutting.
That was the trade you learned?
That was my trade.
I can thank my mother for that,
because later, at Nahsholim and at Sdot Yam
I worked as a seamstress, for many years.
I'm considered a good seamstress.
We joined the army.
3 years of training with the Nahal.
3 months of basic training, which was hard.
I hated the army.
I didn't like it.
We came back to Sdot Yam, where we served without pay,
not in uniform, working...
on various...
kibbutz projects.
I started working in the kindergarten
and also in the dining hall.
After that,
I started having children, and worked at the sewing workshop.
While having children... I worked at the school.
I was sent there, for 6 months with a class,
Bar Mitzvah age.
That's it.
I worked in the school for 12 years.
I enjoyed it,
still young and energetic.
Even during my pregnancies, I enjoyed it.
Then I went back to the sewing workshop.
I'd had enough.
And here I am today.
I'm separated, have 4 children.
3 here on the kibbutz,
one in the Denia neighborhood, in Haifa.
That's it. These days,
speaking for myself,
I'm happy and well.
I take classes in the college
and study painting.
I used to study painting and music.
Not these days, though.
I'm happy.
Studying, keeping busy.
I'm writing a book now.
A memoir.
That's me.
Thank you.
Let's get back to your family's origins.
In Turkey and Iraq. -Yes.
What do you know about your family,
your parents' families, who came to Israel?
I have no idea.
I have no answer.
I don't know to this day.
Since I was 5 years old...
I didn't ask my parents questions.
Father was unapproachable.
He was the kind of father...
You called him "Father,"
but he never hugged you.
Never.
Maybe that's how it was back then.
Father was...
like that.
Mother was everything to us.
She raised us, held us, kissed and loved us...
I don't know how they came to the Old City.
I have no idea.
I'd like to talk about...
Old City life.
I'd love to hear. -I can?
Of course.
Yes.
I'll begin by saying,
I lived at the Hurva Synagogue.
A beautiful and important place in the Old City.
It was a large, magnificent synagogue.
I have many memories from there
when I go visit.
That's why I said it was important
to talk about.
But first I want to emphasize
that we lived with Arabs in the same courtyard.
When I speak of Jerusalem,
On Jerusalem Day sometimes,
I emphasize that.
We had excellent relations.
We grew up with Arab children, Sharing the neighborhood and yard.
We'd sit together, in the neighborhood
with the Arab mothers
who had children our age.
This became significant later, if I might mention the war.
It became very significant,
that sense of togetherness.
They became Jordanian soldiers,
while my brothers joined the Etzel and Lehi.
I had one brother, Ephraim, in the Etzel,
and another in the Lehi,
That's it.
That's another story, but I digress.
We'll talk about it later. -Yes? -Sure.
I want to. It's important to me.
But first, tell me more,
about your experiences before the war.
Describe them. -Yes.
And just explain what you meant,
when you said you lived at the Hurva.
Where exactly did you live?
Please explain.
I lived by the synagogue.
Two skips away.
I remember I'd...
Our home was humble, small for 9 children.
As a girl,
I loved music.
I'd sit on the stairs, our house had stairs,
very steep.
I'd sit and peek through the synagogue window.
That's how close we were.
I'd listen to the prayers as if they were operas.
It was really something. I can't even...
When I hear prayers in that operatic style,
it takes me back
and I get tears in my eyes.
I'd sit for hours, on Fridays and Shabbat.
People would come from abroad, from America,
many people,
to experience the prayers at the Hurva Synagogue.
I'd sit there for hours and hours, as a girl.
I was lost in it.
I loved it.
Did you go in?
Go in? -Into the Hurva.
Of course.
I was there every day.
I remember what it looked like. It's been reconstructed,
just as I remember it. I saw it and cried.
It took me back to my childhood.
It's exactly the same.
Of course I'd go in.
I remember the guard in the entrance.
I remember everything since I was 5.
At home, we followed religious traditions.
When I came home from kindergarten or school,
I'd go up to that giant door,
as a girl, it seemed huge.
A large wooden door, with a large mezuzah.
I'd always put my hand up
to kiss the mezuzah, before going home.
We had a courtyard. As a child...
it seemed huge.
Looking back, fully grown,
we went back, after the war, to see it.
Everything was in ruins.
It all seemed so small.
I was all grown up, standing in that small place.
One of our windows is still there.
Whenever I'm in the Old City,
I go for walks there,
I stand before that window as if it were a mezuzah.
I want to talk about our neighbors.
The Hurva has several synagogues in its courtyard.
There was the Sephardic synagogue,
which was smaller.
There was the Hurva Synagogue,
and the small Ashkenazi synagogue.
The Hurva was very stately.
There were...
different ethnic groups.
Each woman would bring her family's traditional dishes
and we'd have a picnic in the yard. I remember it well.
Each with her own food, and her children.
The whole family. It was a real picnic.
It was a great atmosphere. Neighborliness.
Everyone worked very hard.
But in the evening, we'd manage to gather in the yard,
in some corner,
and talk about life, and the world.
During World War II, for instance,
the adults knew more about the Germans.
My image of a German?
Boots.
They kept describing the Germans' boots.
To this day, it's my first association...
when someone wears tall boots.
I associate it with the Germans.
Less so, now that I'm older.
We heard echoes about the war.
I was very curious, as a girl,
and wanted to know about the war.
Do you remember...
what you were told about the war?
We were told Jews were being tortured.
At the time.
They didn't know yet, what went on.
I mostly heard about Jews being tortured,
that they were starving.
We spoke of it at school, eventually.
When I went to school,
it was to a girls' school.
Boys and girls studied separately.
I want to describe...
I spoke about the yard, the friendship and neighborliness,
about the Sephardic prayers I liked listening to.
Maybe I should've been religious.
But I'm not.
I remember the tradition at home.
It was...
Father was very religious.
Mother was too.
I want to talk about the holidays.
Before that,
I have some questions.
You spoke of picnics.
Was this with Arab families? -Them as well.
It was very special.
They came too,
with their traditional dishes.
We went to their children's weddings.
They came to ours.
Our relationship was unbelievably good.
Eventually, they vanished. We understood why later.
I understood why.
When you say...
I want to know more about these picnics.
Can you describe,
tell me,
where the families were from?
What food did they bring?
This family was...
Describe the people...
so that we can imagine it.
My family was Kurdish.
A mix of Persian and Kurdish.
I don't remember what language we spoke.
We didn't speak it.
Mother made kubeh.
Soup with kubeh.
And special Persian rice.
One family brought Yemenite dishes.
You know Yemenite cuisine?
Yemenite soup with meat,
various breads, kubaneh and jachnun.
All those baked goods.
One family was from Iraq. We were...
a real mix of people.
There were Ashkenazim.
We lived among Ashkenazim,
They had their kugel.
That noodle casserole.
The Arabs would bring pita bread.
Pita bread with humus,
and platters of sweet pastries.
To this day, they are sold in the Old City,
You can still eat them.
That, at least, hasn't changed.
Yes.
What language would you speak?
Hebrew.
Definitely Hebrew. I don't remember the language,
my parents' mother tongue.
Maybe a word, here and there.
My older brothers spoke it.
But...
I remember speaking Hebrew. With my mother, too.
With my siblings.
That's what I remember.
That's what we spoke.
What did you speak with the Arab children?
We spoke Arabic.
Excellent question.
I learned Arabic, in the yard.
From them.
They spoke to us in Arabic.
They didn't speak Hebrew,
but they must've picked up a bit.
I realized they must have, when the war began.
That's a different story.
It must be told. I wrote a book about it.
So...
Now I want to talk
about the traditions in my home.
If that's alright.
It is, we'll get to it.
I just want to finish with the neighbors.
Of course.
You mentioned the yard,
playing with the other children.
What games would you play?
We played hopscotch (Klass).
Do you know it?
You draw squares, then jump.
You toss a stone, jump,
turn around,
go back, holding the stone.
We played "five stones" a lot.
You know it.
We used five iron cubes,
you bought them especially.
We'd play for hours.
There were no games like today, no Scrabble,
no board games.
They didn't exist.
We played street games,
that's what they're called.
Yes.
I mostly remember hopscotch,
and throwing a ball against a wall,
or passing it to each other.
Those are the games I remember.
In your yard, was there a difference
between Ashkenazim and Sephardim?
That's what I meant.
We were united.
There was no difference.
Definitely not. I remember nothing of the kind.
I had friends my age.
I'd go for sleepovers, at their house,
or they came to mine. It was crowded,
with my 9 siblings.
There was no difference.
That was with an Ashkenazi family.
And with a Yemenite family.
There were other friendships,
my brothers fell in love with their daughters.
They fell in love and got married.
Yes.
We had the wedding in the courtyard.
We had no food, but we had a wedding.
My mother saved every penny,
so she could pay for her children's weddings.
I remember my eldest sister's wedding.
It was a special wedding. It was something...
But we had no food at home...
We were...
always hungry.
I remember that.
Our food was meager. Bean soup, rice,
bread,
with jam or margarine. That's what we ate, I think.
However, this is important -
on Wednesdays,
my father went to the market.
Sometimes we went with him.
He'd buy some meat,
which was prepared for Shabbat.
The family gathered, it was...
I can't,
I can't even describe...
the meat he brought was called...
"kirshe" in Arabic.
You had to make it kosher.
We'd all help in the preparation for Shabbat.
Shabbat was a celebration.
We finally had meat.
My mother made Shabbat special.
She'd bake a good cake.
I remember her cakes.
Really.
And special food.
Eggs in the sabbath stew. We had sabbath stew for Shabbat.
We waited for Shabbat, so we could eat.
Really.
I'd come back from school on weekdays
and make my own food.
Mother was out working.
She worked very hard.
That was Shabbat.
I want to talk about the holidays.
The preparations. My mother was...
a very noble woman.
A beautiful, noble woman.
It's not just me, many people said so.
She would,
we didn't know she saved money,
for the Passover Seder.
I remember the Seder as being lots of fun.
She'd invite everyone...
my half-siblings' children,
my non-grandmother,
and their children.
It was a celebration, with about 40 people.
I remember the preparations.
We all pitched in.
It was a real experience.
My mother was exhausted afterwards.
Where did she get the energy, to prepare good food
for so many people?
She saved up, she knew...
how best to run the household,
even when money was...
I was a hungry child.
I remember that.
What food did you make yourself?
I'd make...
a sandwich to take to school.
I remember making...
two slices of bread with...
we had this fish spread,
or chocolate spread,
in the morning.
We never had eggs. Mother never made omelets.
That especially.
I remember once,
the knife was very sharp, I cut myself.
The scar's still there.
I cut myself and I was all alone.
I remember thinking: What should I do?
How can I go to school?
It was hard.
What did you do? -A small memory,
this injury. -What did you do?
What did I do?
I stopped the blood, using some fabric,
and didn't go to school.
I stayed home, crying, waiting for Mother.
That knife was so sharp, I still remember it.
Unbelievable.
All these tiny memories.
For example, we'd go,
we had school trips,
once in a while.
But we couldn't afford it.
I didn't go on the trips for that reason.
Mother couldn't afford it.
That's why I go on trips these days.
I'm always traveling,
to make up for it.
Honestly. I go on lots of trips.
I enjoy them.
Yes.
Great.
Okay, let's get back to the holidays.
You spoke of the holidays and traditions.
You began with Passover.
Tell me more about it.
You talked about preparations, and special food.
Can you describe,
from your perspective,
what you did for Passover?
Help us imagine it.
First, the cleaning.
That was part of the preparation.
Starting a month before Passover.
If not sooner.
My mother would come home from work,
and go crazy, cleaning, scrubbing, polishing.
It was a nightmare.
I remember, it was very hard work.
Even though the house was small.
Don't touch this, it's kosher.
Just...
We were slowly cornered,
into a tiny space,
where we could eat.
We ate sandwiches.
There was no more cooking,
no cooking for a week before the holiday.
None.
Eat whatever's there.
Spreads on bread.
Vegetables.
I remember that.
The biggest nightmare
was the exhaustion before the holiday.
We started cooking again.
After the cleaning,
the house is sparking clean,
then the cooking begins, two days before the holiday.
We had no fridge.
No fridge.
But Jerusalem is cold.
It was still cold during Passover.
The weather was cold.
My mother cooked pots and pots of food.
All sorts.
First of all, the blessings at the Passover table with all the food.
The special blessings.
We read the Haggadah.
We sang and had fun.
It was joyful. I loved that holiday.
We also had new clothes, for a change.
Everything else was hand-me-downs.
That's all we wore.
But we had new clothes and shoes.
Everything was neat and clean.
It felt great...
After all the hardships,
Passover felt wonderful.
The table was amazing,
covered with delicacies.
Like what?
Chicken, meatballs, matzo balls.
Matzo balls in the Sephardic style.
Soup and eggs, which you bless, horseradish,
all in huge quantities.
My mother would fry eggplants
and cauliflower.
I remember what the table looked like.
We were overjoyed.
It was a real celebration.
Where did we sleep?
I'll tell you.
You couldn't go home.
There was no transportation from the Old City that night.
No one had a car.
So they slept over.
One person slept under the table.
Another on the cupboard. I'm not kidding.
I'm serious.
On the cupboard.
We spread mattresses in the corner.
Because of the holiday, Mother borrowed several mattresses.
We slept in rows. Like one big picnic.
That's all.
That's how it was...
just so.
And again the next day. Mother with the food.
Cooking was allowed.
She cooked the next day,
if it was a weekday, not Shabbat.
She prepared more food for all those people.
When the holiday ended,
everyone left,
for the rest of the Passover weekdays.
I remember one time,
when we had a special celebration.
Where did we go?
To the Dead Sea.
The whole family.
It was my first time there.
I'd never seen the sea at all.
Also,
we took what was left of the food with us.
It was wonderful.
I saw Mother laughing and happy,
which didn't happen often in her busy daily life.
I kept hugging her.
I was so glad to see her like that.
Really.
That was it.
How did you go?
What did you do there? -Bus.
The no. 2 bus.
It took us there.
So...
The bus was packed.
Everyone wanted a vacation.
Yes.
Passover was the biggest holiday.
And Rosh Hashanah.
Which was much the same.
Describe how you felt
when you got to the Dead Sea.
How I felt?
Wow.
I saw the sea.
Everyone bathing.
We didn't slather ourselves,
the way people do now, with mud.
We didn't.
my mother went in the water.
We were warned not to let water in our eyes.
We were there all day.
Everyone was happy.
I watched my mother, being happy.
I love her so much...
she was everything to me.
For her...
Seeing her happy made me happy.
Yes. -Tell me about her.
I'll tell you this.
I'll tell you where she worked.
It was very important then.
She worked for the Jewish leader (Mukhtar) of the Old City,
called Weingarten.
I don't know if the name says anything to you.
A widely respected family,
and very rich - the Mukhtar (mayor).
Mother worked there for years.
When she finished there,
she cleaned a school, but she liked...
the Weingartens most.
She laundered and cleaned for them.
They treated her well.
She was a beautiful woman.
Despite our poverty,
she was always well-dressed
and attractive.
She worked there.
I'd go visit her and didn't want to leave.
I'd go in the afternoon, after school,
to see if I could help,
do something.
I helped a little, but...
she worked very hard,
I realized that later.
How could she do it?
All that hard work,
one birth after another,
always pregnant. How could she?
I was spoiled. My mother wasn't.
She was a woman of great virtue.
She was the definition of virtue.
Until...
we all left home, most moved to the kibbutzim,
because of the poverty. After the war.
We lived better then.
But in the Old City, I remember Mother,
forever working.
We barely saw her.
She came home, begging: "Let me lie down for a minute,
"I'll be up good as new."
And she was.
We didn't disturb her.
She'd lie down for a few minutes,
close her eyes, relax a little,
and get up, filled with fresh energy.
Did you share things with her?
Did you talk? -No.
Not at all.
There was no time.
There wasn't.
Even if I wanted to share...
to talk about growing up.
I was 9 when we left the Old City.
I remember everything since I was 5.
But you couldn't talk to her about everything.
It wasn't done at the time.
Later, when I was a mother myself,
I'd go visit her at her home,
I'd interview her,
about her childhood, what she'd been through.
What did she tell you?
She told me...
what I told you. She was adopted.
She didn't remember her parents.
She had no grandparents.
Neither did I.
My father's family had more money,
and adopted her,
and raised her.
She never went to school.
She was illiterate.
Nothing.
Not even letters.
That's how she survived.
She spent her life surviving.
She told me...
it was hard for her.
At an extremely young age...
she was intended for my father.
20 years older than her. Not easy.
She started having children,
and more children...
She had no life, no youth.
She had no adolescence.
It must have been very hard.
She didn't know,
that it was part of adolescence.
She just got married.
She was married off.
In your teenage years you weren't in the Old City,
so let's move on.
Tell me about your father,
his role in the family.
It's hard to talk about him,
because we weren't close.
I was angry with him.
He didn't work.
He was a street photographer.
He took passport photos.
He became sick,
and stopped working entirely.
He'd sit at home like some sheikh,
expecting my mother to wait on him.
Just so.
I remember her...
at bedtime,
serving him coffee,
fetching his slippers.
He'd sit and wait.
He didn't work.
He didn't do anything.
He'd yell at us sometimes,
but didn't beat us.
No hugs or kisses.
A father by name only.
I'm sorry, it's...
I never saw him hug my mother.
He never hugged her.
Never said a kind word to her,
thanking her for her hard work.
I never saw that.
This stayed with me.
It's a real issue for me.
Yes.
That's why I'm a crazy mother.
Very crazy.
My children are all grown.
My son is 50.
Still, I'm anxious,
the way my mother was anxious. About the kids,
worrying about their lives.
But Father...
nothing.
Did you speak to your father about this?
Never.
Speak to Father?
When he walked past me or the girls,
he'd move away,
because he was religious.
He mustn't touch girls, lest they be unclean.
It was awful.
It was just...
a different mentality.
I think that's what it was like then.
Maybe not all families.
But in the courtyard, it was mostly like that.
The father was like a sheikh.
Like with the Arabs.
Did your parents have a social life?
Did they...
A social life?
No way.
Mother came back late from work.
Our social life was the courtyard.
It was what I described earlier.
Courtyard life.
On Shabbat we'd sit there,
cracking sunflower seeds.
Sitting on the path...
the narrow path, the Old City alleys.
The neighbor women would sit, singing in Spaniolit.
They sang in Ladino.
I remember that.
Do you remember the songs?
My mother loved Shabbat, I think.
And so did we.
Like I said. The food,
the courtyard life, the Hurva, the prayers,
the opera.
Do you remember these operas?
No, it was a prayer.
It was considered a prayer.
But he sang,
like people sing in operas today.
That's what it sounded like to me.
When I listen to operas today, I love doing that,
it reminds me.
I close my eyes and it takes me back
to those opera-like prayers.
Do you remember the prayers?
No.
Not at all.
I don't remember.
The language...
it was in Yiddish.
Or English,
when Americans visited.
They came to the Hurva to experience prayer there.
From different countries. So there were even prayers in English.
I didn't speak it as a child.
What else?
Excuse me.
You said you followed religious tradition at home.
What does that mean? -Sorry?
That you were a traditional family.
Excuse me.
When you say traditional, rather than religious,
what do you mean?
On weekdays, for instance,
my mother was less devout.
Father was.
He prayed, went to synagogue.
2-3 times a day.
But my mother...
she didn't turn the lights on on Shabbat.
And, of course, we had no electricity.
We used kerosene lamps.
Few had electricity.
We used lamps in the Old City.
Mother was less religious.
Father was religious.
I have another story about my family.
The bathing extravaganza.
You won't believe this.
We bathed on Thursdays.
All the siblings in a row,
ranged according to age.
We had a washtub, called a payla,
in Arabic.
A washtub. Mother would light...
a Primus stove.
It was so loud you couldn't talk.
A large washtub filled with water.
When it was your turn, you showered.
Mother would wash us,
wash our hair.
Once a week. Not once a day.
Always on Thursdays.
My sister dried us, dressed us,
and sent us to bed. Like an assembly line.
It was a pleasant experience.
I always wanted to be clean,
have my hair washed.
As a girl, I had long hair.
Mother says I was a pretty girl.
So she tried to nurture that.
That was the bathing extravaganza.
After working all day,
Mother washed us,
then sent us to bed. At 4am,
Friday morning,
she'd be up, I remember it well,
singing and kneading dough,
making challah bread for Shabbat.
We made it ourselves.
She'd make challah bread for Shabbat and sing.
She'd cry, too.
I remember.
I was very attuned to her.
I'd hear her singing...
In Kurdish, I think.
Or Farsi.
The song was always sad.
I wished, I said to myself:
"Stop singing."
I didn't want her to sing, because it made her cry.
I'd get up
and ask a question, to get her to stop.
I was very attuned to my mother.
Not easy...
The bathing,
were boys and girls separated? -Yes.
How? -Boys and girls.
Yes.
Like links on a chain, all 9 of us.
One goes out, another goes in.
Dump the water, pour more in. Over and over.
Times were hard.
We were very poor.
But the holidays were happy.
We had beautiful moments.
I remember one Thursday,
before the bathing,
my mother had a job at the market.
The Hurva
was right by the market.
The job we did
was plucking chickens for Shabbat.
I'll never forget it.
I can't say everything.
It was...
I'd sit on the floor with my siblings,
plucking chickens.
That's how we helped Mother, making some money.
Father never helped out.
That's it.
Another thing I remember well,
is how I loved the market.
I'd run up and down the market.
Another place I loved...
this is why I would've liked to talk there,
in the Old City,
because the memories would come back...
I remember my brothers playing,
running on top of the wall.
On the Old City walls.
The safety rails weren't there back then.
My younger brother and sister, and myself,
we were a threesome.
A threesome,
always playing together.
What did you do on the walls?
How did it work?
It was a game.
When I walk by the walls today,
it takes me back to my childhood.
I walk with my brother, and ask:
"Remember anything here?"
He says he remembers running back and forth on the wall.
Did your mother
give you instructions,
permit or forbid anything?
Or did you do as you pleased?
What was it like?
My mother had no time for that.
My older sister raised us.
She's the one who scolded us,
and beat us at times.
Maybe she thought it was educational.
Just a little.
Until she married, and had her own home,
in the Old City,
and a husband with money.
More money.
We liked visiting her,
because she always had candy.
That was my eldest sister.
Things got harder when she left.
So the next person had to...
do her duties.
You see?
Is that what happened?
The boys did it.
Young men. My brothers Ephraim and Shimon,
who were closer to her age.
Something like that.
They helped by working, instead of going to school.
They had all sorts of jobs.
Like what?
Construction work. My brother Ephraim
drove a heavy loader
for many years, even after we moved.
My brother Shimon,
I don't remember what he did.
He was very introverted.
Ephraim and my sister Simcha were very dominant.
He was the educator,
he took on the role
of disciplining us.
The boys did the raising.
We'll stop now, the tape is finished.
We'll start again soon. Thank you.