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Hello, my name is Nitsana Bellehsen.
I am interviewing the Mizrachi family today.
Their previous name was Ben-Mordechai.
They will tell us each of their names later,
but right now, I'll say them all.
We'll start with David, Adina, Moshe and Bat Sheva.
Our photographer today is Yaron Weinstein.
The soundman is Eli Taragon. Producer is Alyona Bass.
It is July 5th 2011 and we are in the Old City.
Hello everyone. -Hello to you.
Thank you for coming
because I know you came from far away.
If you can, first of all,
let's go one by one. Please introduce yourselves.
Tell me your name, who you are, where you were born and the year.
My name is David.
I was named David-Hai
and I was born in 1937
at Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem, at Hadassah.
I was in the Old City
until 1948, until the Quarter fell.
I'm Adina, currently Adina Sher.
I was born in Jerusalem at Hadassah
in 1938.
That's it.
Moshe. I was born in 1941, like them, at Hadassah Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem.
And... until 1948.
Bat-Sheva, Ben Eliyahu.
I was born here too, on Mt. Scopus.
In 1943.
Can you please take off your sunglasses?
Oh, I'm sorry. -It's much nicer
and we want to see your pretty eyes.
Okay, can anyone tell me
where we are right now?
We're on Ha-Yehudim St.
Ha-Yehudim St., a street that...
There was a chain of stores,
grocery stores, bakeries, cafes,
which was the commercial center of the Old City.
This place where we're standing
is where my father's stores were, he was a grocer.
He had two stores.
The grocery store and the adjacent warehouse.
Are we standing in the grocery store?
We are now standing in my father's grocery store.
It's a real coincidence, you meeting us right here.
What does that mean?
That we met you here,
that we met here by chance
and told you that this spot was actually
part of the atmosphere, part of the Old City life.
My father spent a lot of time here and we spent time here helping him.
one of you here - can you just show us?
Does anyone remember what this grocery store looked like?
I remember, do you remember?
It was very small.
All of this did not exist.
It was a small store with a counter sticking out.
No... a small grocery store\ with basic groceries.
So, okay. Where we are standing,
if you can just even walk over there.
This was this... Show us.
I think the store faced that way.
Across the stairs to...
What I remember of this store
is the groceries that my father sold every day.
That's where he stored the surplus goods.
What I remember, first of all,
is that we loved to lick all kinds of cookies at the store
and all kinds of leftovers that couldn't be sold
because they didn't look nice,
so we always...
But even more...
I was very naīve
I went to the store once, it was Passover Eve.
I went to the store's storage room where the surplus was kept.
The store's warehouse.
It was Passover Eve
and there were very big sacks of nuts.
I invited my friends
and started filling their pockets with nuts.
It was only later that I got yelled at
because I had realized that I did something wrong.
How could I give goods that my father sells?
I remember that very well.
Show us where it was? -I think it was over here.
There was another store here. A warehouse, this warehouse.
There were two openings, right next to each other.
This door was open, unlocked.
My father didn't lock lock the storeroom
and... people came this way, my good friends.
I went in and they all opened their hands or their shirts
and I gave them nuts for Passover, as a gift.
How old were you?
I think I was in second grade.
Maybe I wanted my friends to like me
and I bought my friends. I don't know why I did it.
But it was generous.
I'll tell you something else.
My father's generosity. Our family grew up on it.
The family always knew that Father loved to give,
we were next on the list.
He loved to give to people, to help people out,
so I guess we picked it up and... naively, I gave...
there were cases where families had no other way to get it.
They were poor. The Quarter was mostly poor
and my father often donated goods
although our financial situation wasn't that good.
He always thought of people
who were poorer than us
and he always volunteered and donated.
Not long ago, there was a reunion
and I met someone who said: "Oh, your father,
"he gave us things when we were poor."
My father's store, from the outside, and mainly on Passover,
you could see the folded sacks
with all of the peanuts and nuts and all of the different kinds ...
spread out at the door.
People would walk by and see...
There were other stores next to us.
Cheese stores, the barber was around here.
The police, my cousin had a stationery store.
That was near us.
Then there was a police station.
I always saw the British police officer
with his typical gait, with a cane,
twirling it as if he were an orchestra conductor
and he walked down the road
like a manager monitoring the situation on the street.
That was a routine image.
My father did not get into arguments.
People sometimes came in with merchandise, saying:
"Look, this is bad..."
He'd say: "No problem, take another or I'll refund your money."
There were no conflicts.
He had a straight arrow
manner of conduct.
That was our upbringing, that's what he taught us
without having
any confrontations or...
His personal example educated us for ourselves.
What else do you remember of the store?
What do you remember?
I remember that, as a little boy,
I came to the store and wanted a mil
so I could go to the store over there to buy papo.
Papo is ground chickpeas with a bit of sugar, it was sweet.
It was wrapped in a newspaper, like a cone.
I'd hassle my mother into giving me the mil
so I could go buy that papo cone,
There was ambar.
Ambar was an apple. -An apple?
An apple on a stick coated with colored sugar.
It was... The Arabs came with wagons,
with a high counter
and on it, they presented their wares.
Strawberries, figs
or ambar.
And they'd come and sell it on the street.
They'd often come from the New City
and buy things on the way.
For example, there's the soos. What is it?
It's the big brass pitcher
that the Arab carries with cymbals in his hand
and he bangs the cymbals, announcing his presence
and we'd ask him for soos.
It's an herbal drink with ice
and he had five glasses around his waist
in order to pour the drink.
In his other hand, he had a small pitcher of water
to rinse each cup after it was used.
He'd pour it, like this...
because the copper pitcher, it was a huge copper pitcher.
Its spout turned upwards.
He had to aim... -He tilted his body
and as he tilted,
he had to bend down and pour the glass of the drink.
I had an arrangement with him.
I told him I was thirsty and I wanted to drink
and he'd ask my father for money.
And that's how it was.
Sometimes I'd go play at the playground
and he'd go by so I'd ask him and he came.
I don't remember much of David's story, about the pitcher,
I don't know if I remember correctly.
I remember that he was dressed ornately, he was festive,
and the pitcher, it also had something artistic about it.
I don't know if there was, a rug or something,
the entire pitcher was a work of art. -It was a huge pitcher
with a big spout...
It was not just about the drink, but about the form and service.
He had a dance step,
he did something for show, it was very nice.
The ceremony surrounding this drink.
Do you remember it? How did the dance go?
He would bend down, just like David did.
But he had cymbals made of shiny copper.
He didn't dance, it was his walk.
The pitcher, it... He'd actually pour it...
I was small, it was like it all came from above.
Another little thing about my father.
He knew seven languages.
Armenian, Russian and Arabic...
People came to him, I have friends
who heard that Pinchas, from the Old City,
that my father loved your father
because he knew how to speak Kurdish
and he has such good memories.
It was the same with the people, the customers who came around.
They liked coming and speaking their language
with someone courteous.
That's why the Armenians, because he knew their language,
the road led directly from the Armenian Quarter to us.
So around Passover,
the Armenians would order their matzos before the Jews
and they liked the Passover matzos.
They didn't... they liked... and they gave.
My father spoke to them in Armenian and they loved him.
There's a very nice story that, during the war,
an Armenian prevented my father's capture by the Jordanians
because he was a Red Cross official
and he knew him.
He said: "No, you're not taking this man to prison."
He told the Jordanians and the British who were there,
"You are not taking this man," and he didn't go to prison.
Why? -Because he saw this man,
when they came looking for the few prisoners,
they caught my father
and once or twice, my father went to the office to register
toward going to prison
and he was always sent back.
Finally, the Armenian was a Red Cross man
and he decided who did and did not go.
So he knew him when he met him.
We heard him coming up the steps to the apartment.
Papa Pinchas, Papa Pinchas.
When he met him, he hugged and kissed him
as if he were really his father.
He said, "I want to get you out."
My father said: "No.
"We will share the fate of everyone else.
"I am not leaving alone."
Then, he said: "At least I'll make sure
"he doesn't go to prison."
And so, when he was taken several times,
he sent a Jordanian soldier
to guard my father, so he's not harassed
and to stay next to my father until they left the Quarter.
There are a few things that... I mean, I understood you,
but there are some things that I would like to clarify.
First, you said that he would go register for prison.
What does that mean?
The legionnaires, when they...
after we surrendered and were in one place,
they went looking for the prisoners.
They had a problem because there weren't enough.
So he found my father
who was among those who could be taken.
They wanted to appear before the Arab Shabab with a lot of people.
"Here, we brought prisoners,"
and they didn't have the...
Mention that your father was old. -My father was...
No, he wasn't that old.
He was 55. They took someone who was 80, too.
He wasn't the oldest. It was customary.
For example, my mother would tell me to sit down quickly
because she was afraid that I would be taken.
How old were you? -I was 11.
Every time he was taken to register,
they'd send him back. He would send him back.
On the third time, he had someone protect him against doing that.
But where was that office?
It's not an office.
It was a table... they set it up in the field.
A table and chairs
with Jordanian commanders and British commanders.
And they... he insisted that he does not go to prison.
That's the procedure of the prisoners' list.
There had to be information about every prisoner.
Details and data.
My second question is about something you said,
that this man
wanted to get your father out.
When was that?
It was after the surrender.
I'm not telling you the entire story
because it is a long one.
It was during the surrender. -During the surrender,
two legionnaires came to our apartment
with Thompson guns
and we thought it was the end.
They stood there. He probably sent them to look for us.
When we saw them, my oldest sister Esther
offered them coffee.
My father made strong coffee, preparing for trouble.
He had a grocery store so he could afford it
and she made them coffee.
They asked her to taste it before they drank it.
She did and they relaxed.
They were real gentlemen.
We were on the second floor and we heard someone
calling Papa Pinchas. He came to meet us.
That was the encounter.
We'd like to hear that in the house too,
before we leave the store. -Yes.
There are other memories from the store...
Before we leave, there were other things that...
memories of the store.
How we could lick things here and there,
we always came to get something so we could buy elsewhere.
We also wanted to buy things
like other people who use money to buy things.
We were deprived.
So we always looked for the opportunity
of getting... a mil. We never got more than a mil.
For little things, as long as we bought elsewhere.
He has many mils and I...
We had other coins. -I have a Palestinian half lira.
Did you bring them? -No.
I have seven sisters.
In Purim, I dressed up as a girl.
I had eight sisters.
I went to my cousin, who was our neighbor,
and asked him for Purim money.
So he gave me money and I went shopping.
I dressed up as a sister, in addition to my sisters.
Also, the merchandise would come to the store
on donkeys brought by Arabs.
They'd bring the goods in sacks on donkeys
and the donkey would stop at the door of the store.
They would unload the...
and the porter wanted baksheesh. What was his baksheesh?
A piece of fenugreek that he'd cut and pop in his mouth.
What I remember of the store, not really of the store,
is that my father spent hours there, morning to night.
In all, as children,
we didn't really enjoy him at home.
Except for Friday and Shabbat. -And holidays.
He spent weekends at the synagogue.
It's like he spent most of his life working, at the store.
When you say morning to night,
can you give me a timeframe?
Look, he got up at 4am, went to the synagogue
and from there, to the store.
I remember my mother making his morning drink
and how I loved the smell of cocoa
coming from the kitchen.
I loved when my mother made his coffee
and I heard him drink,
making sounds like the Russians...
he liked the coffee.
Ever since, I've been an early riser.
After that, we didn't see him until the evening.
We'd go visit him in the store, bring him things sometimes,
but we were at school.
He'd come home at night.
What do you mean? -I don't know... -It was dark.
He'd sometimes come home... -In the dark.
Sometimes at 8 or 9pm. -A long day. -Really.
But he went to synagogue too.
But I remember
that he had migraines, no wonder. -He was sick.
And he had... -A cyst on his leg.
Something on his leg... an ulcer or something,
and it acted up every once in a while
and he wouldn't go to work.
My mother would save the day.
She'd go to the store. -My mother and oldest sister.
She would first take care of the house,
she did laundry in copper tubs
and went up there to hang the white linen.
Let's talk about the house.
She'd finish doing that
and she'd go to the store
to work instead of my father.
My older sister too. -The older girls would help her.
Esther worked too. She was like our second mother.
They stepped in so the store would stay open.
Did any of you help in the store?
I did, a bit. I was not even 11.
I only helped when I wanted a mil, then I'd come.
Not me.
I remember, for example, that...
the neighbor's son, from the next door store,
he'd badger me a lot
when I was alone in the store.
He came in and pulled a sack of nuts and it fell
and I had to pick up the sack and put it back
and put the nuts back in...
There was a barbershop next to us too.
He was an older man and people came to get a haircut.
But not just a haircut.
There was more to it. For people with high blood pressure,
he had leaches to suck their blood.
You could see the leaches getting bigger
with people's blood.
It was an institution
for people with hypertension, they came to the barber.
I remember the leaches on their hands,
getting bigger.
Do you remember what you did here?
When you came to help?
That story was great,
but do you remember if you had a job that you would do here?
Usually, at that age, I'd spend time with my father.
I didn't sell, I was present.
I didn't have to...
manage the store.
We brought him food and drink from home.
Our mother sent us, we were messengers.
Otherwise he wouldn't eat.
It was like that after we left too,
when we were in Katamon.
You said that your father had a problem with his leg.
How was it treated? The migraines and the leg?
He went... I think he'd lie down
and the migraine went away along with its side effects.
That was it. -He had an ointment
for his leg, he treated it alone.
The doctor gave him instructions and he took care of it alone.
After taking a shower, he'd sit,
bend his leg over the other, on his knee,
and take care of it, it was a black ointment.
It was very hard. His leg was very damaged.
It looked almost like gangrene. It was hard for him.
And he never complained. -No, he never...
We were wrong.
Do you know where it came from? -No, that's how we knew him.
Do you know who the doctor was?
I think at Misgav LaDach.
A general practitioner.
There were no specialists then who could... determine things.
Not that it was much help, that treatment.
I never saw his leg get any better.
I mean, over the years, throughout his history.
Decades went by and there was no improvement.
And what about the barbershop. -The leaches? Leaches.
Was that a treatment?
I don't know.
Whenever I got my hair cut there,
he would sit on the side with his leaches,
without any... routine.
It wasn't anything professional, he wasn't an authority,
nothing.
That was the image.
Did you ever have that done? -God forbid.
No, but it was customary.
I mean, it was nothing special.
But leach therapy was well known. -Even today...
for reducing blood pressure and all kinds of things.
Did you think it was scary or good?
I never saw it.
You know, some things
may have scared me when I got older.
But as a kid, I guess we're more...
more resistant as kids than we think.
Before we go on, we'll continue walking with you.
But before I ask you where to,
I want to take some visuals of the store,
so we'll just keep quiet.
If you want, you can talk to each other
or just keep quiet, walk around the store. Right?
Before we do that,
we'll do what we call, reactions.
He just filmed people talking
and we want to have the reaction.
So he'll go by, one by one, tell him where he should...
Let's pretend that Adina is talking now.
Look at her as she talks.
Oh... -Exactly.
Adina, you can say anything.
You can tell us something. -Say something.
Not about the store... -Not something important...
Not something important that I need to film.
In the garden, I collected chocolate fruit wrappers
because we had a chocolate theme
and I played piano in the garden,
I'd sit on the floor
and start strumming the strings in the garden in the Old City...
I never walked, I always jumped around.
I did not walk.
Excellent. Now, when David talks, you can look at him.
When I saw the cart with the amber,
I felt like doing something mischievous.
I said: "I'd reach out my hand,
"grab the amber and run away."
But I wasn't scared. I knew that if an Arab chased me,
they'd get all of his amber
so I quietly reached out, took the amber and ran.
Now... -Moshe. -Now look at Moshe as he speaks.
I liked the amber too
and without any misgivings, I took one too, from the side,
without the vendor noticing.
It wasn't bad either.
Go ahead, David. Sorry, Moshe.
Was it good? -Excellent, it was well made
and a pleasure to eat with... with sugar.
Beyond that... -Pretty too. -Continue talking.
Do you want to hear?
You should know that you are being recorded
so don't say anything that you don't want recorded.
Say things that you want to be said.
I remember David
taking me on his back
and there was an old bearded man and I'd always say:
"There's Eliyahu Anavim,"
instead of Eliyahu Hanavi. -Come on, Bat Sheva.
Don't you remember, when you were little?
Our parents went to Shimon HaZadik, it was Lag Ba'Omer
and you were small, very tired
and I was told to take you home
and you said: "I'm tired, I can't walk."
So I took you on my back and started walking.
People pitied me, they didn't understand.
I finally got home, exhausted.
I sat you down at Dada's, our neighbor,
and she said: "What happened? She's exhausted.
"What happened to the child?"
You probably didn't drink water or something.
And our parents came home
and I brought you back.... dehydrated.
That was a big deal. -Nothing interesting, I told you.
They used to go to Shimon HaZadik. -Don't tell me, tell him.
There was a custom of going to Shimon HaZadik.
Our parents went on a picnic.
I don't know whether it was Lag Ba'Omer,
from the morning until the evening
and we had to start the bonfire,
prepare for the bonfire in the afternoon.
We were left without our parents and you were with us too.
I think I was in second grade.
I was not a big girl.
The sisters somehow felt that... you were tired or something.
They said: "Take Bat Sheva home."
I was a little girl, I took my sister home
and all she said was: "I can't walk."
You couldn't walk so I carried you on my back,
I took the child home
and people looked at me.
Oh... poor thing, what happened?
I felt that everyone pitied me. I didn't know why, you were on my back.
I walked and without strength I climbed all of the steps to the house.
That was a real challenge in the Old City.
I brought you home, sat you on the steps near the neighbor.
She looked at you and said:
"Can't you see what happened to the child?
"She's fainted!"
She immediately fed you and gave you something to drink
and you came back to life.
I don't remember. I don't remember that.
It was traumatic for me.
I guess it wasn't for me.
That's something you want to forget.
You had fainted. -You were unconscious.
We had a neighbor,
she was really good at that, her name was Dada.
She started yelling: "Your sisters...!"
Eventually, I got yelled at.
She wasn't mad at me, but I heard her anger
about the mess.
I remember Dada, I remember the locust,
the brown sky landing on us, an attack of locust.
And Dada started eating.
I don't know, there was something about food, she ate them.
It was like this.
The locust was sorted.
Kosher or not.
We had a Yemenite neighbor
who was familiar with locust.
So he picked up one and, without much effort,
he looked at its belly.
He'd say: "This is kosher," and put it in the pot.
This is kosher - over there.
Apparently, it was a horde of kosher locusts.
And they were delicacies. -I was scared of them.
We didn't take part in that. -I was scared of the locust.
I think I hid in the house, I didn't dare come out.
It was scary.
But it was an amazing image, the locust attack.
It was a huge cloud.
It wasn't a farming area. It was just...
It probably went to Kfar HaShiloah and the area
and it landed in our yards.
Okay, thank you for your stories.
I want to shoot some footage now.
I want you to walk around the store and...
Just go to the storeroom.
Let's say I'm the customer... -Look at all these boxes.
There were all kinds of sacks here.
And the door to the stores were similar. -Open.
They were the same, iron, with a padlock.
Look over there.
The storeroom came to here...
and the second store... -There was wood...
The second store came up to the stairs.
I mean, they were...
In all, the stores were very limited.
They were small and there was another row of stores too.
The barber, the cheese vendor.
But as kids, the store seemed huge.
Because we were small. -Yes, yes.
It looked very big.
What was across the way? -When I came here...
There was a sahleb vendor. -A cafe.
Sahleb and sugar puffs. Different colored sugar puffs.
There was a scale here, right? -Yes.
A scale with weights. Scales with the weights on one side.
Copper weights. 150 grams, 100 grams...
No, the heavier ones were steel. -Steel...
They were... -3 kg.
Anything heavier than 0.5 kg was made of iron.
There was a box for the weights by gram,
10 grams and all the weights.
If you needed 400 grams, you had the 0.5 kg
and you added the 100 grams.
I really liked seeing people who bought tahini and carob honey.
That came in square tins
and my father would make
a big opening and a small one on the side, for air.
He'd pour it into a metal pitcher, aluminum.
He'd pour the tahini and put it in jars.
He measured it.
Measured and... the tahini was sold by weight.
Agozanda was also sold in cans.
It was carob honey.
Okay, where do you want to take us now,
Ben Mordechai-Mizrahis? -Home.
Let's go to the house. -Do you want me to talk on the way?
I want you to tell me whatever you want to.
No, there are stories that... Let's move on.
I'll leave here. -Yes, yes, go...
We're near the Hurva.
I was a child in the Heder.
At the end of the day, the Haham took me to the Hurva
and gave me another lesson.
I was impressed by the Hurva dome more than with studies.
In the corner, yeshiva students sat and studied Gemara.
At the end of the lesson, I went home
and one day was very cold.
It was winter, I wasn't dressed enough.
I got home and my mother saw I was freezing.
She took me and hugged me to warm me up
and said: "You're not going to the Hurva again."
But the memory of the Hurva remains.
When the Hurva was renovated and I came to visit,
I asked, before entering: "Say,
"what did you do with the balcony around the dome? Did you restore it?"
They said: "Go in and see."
I went in and saw the balcony.
I said: "Very nice, but you have a problem."
Let's go see the balcony.
We stopped because of the camera, right?
While we talked about the Hurva...
I came to visit after they renovated the Hurva
and I asked if the balcony around the dome
was reconstructed.
When I went in, I said: "You have a mistake.
"The high windows, should be in a semicircle
"and then they go straight.
"Just that arch is stained glass.
"But I remember that it was all stained glass."
So she said: "You're right.
"But the thing is,
"since we wanted to have light in the... here,
"we skipped the stained glass."
How old were you here, at the Hurva?
I guess I was 8. 7, 8, 9.
That was it. I didn't come here much,
a few times, no more.
Because I left here frozen one time and my mother didn't allow it.
And who was...? -The Haham?
Tell me about him. What was it like?
In the Hurva? -No, the man you learned with.
I'll tell you later,
when we get home, where we live.
Do you want to go in the Hurva? -I was already there.
I didn't wait. When it opened to the public,
we went together. We went together.
We went on a tour with the kibbutz.
Let's go in for us. -Okay.
Want to go in? -We can...
We can do it at the end, if it's just for one person,
we'll do it at the end. -Yes, yes. Okay.
Truth is... where is the house?
It's on Sha'ar Ha-Shamayim St., Gilad St.
It's Gilad today. -Where the mass grave is.
I know where it is.
Let's make a quick visit into the Hurva.
We're here already, in case we don't come back.
Let's go in now.
Let's see if they let us. Let's try.
Come, come here.
This is the Hurva.
Is this the entrance? -Yes.
This is the Hurva. I remember these chairs.
Okay, all of the innovations...
What memories do you have from this place?
I remember sitting on these chairs.
Show me where. -Here, here.
Here, I'll sit down.
He'll talk and I'll sit down.
This is better.
We're both comfortable.
This is probably authentic. It stayed the same.
This wasn't renovated. -It was... I don't exactly remember.
You can tell that it's old.
Want to go in?
What luxury, wow!
What luxury.
Itzhak said that there's a picture of his grandfather's brother.
Do you have my hat?
No, did you give it to me? No.
Take mine.
I'll go in with a hat.
Your hat is in back. -Really? Thank you.
Is it okay with this hat?
All of this luxury...
I remember a smaller gate
at the entrance to the Hurva.
I don't remember this luxury,
it was ... -Modest. -More modest, yes.
The walls were gray.
The walls were grayer.
There's one wall, I think...
They weren't white, like they are now.
They were darker.
As I said, the windows were all stained glass.
And here... can we go in?
Just the boys.
Here... this is...
This is where Haham Yona taught me.
This is where Haham Yona taught me.
I'd come here in the evening and he'd teach me Torah.
Explain it to him.
There was a group of yeshiva students there, studying Gemara.
They studied Torah, Gemara and Talmud.
That was a lit corner. A lit corner.
Everything was dark. That was lit.
We'd sit here and I'd look at the stained glass.
Is the balcony... the same? -Yes, sort of...
It's a bit... fancier now.
Yes, the walls are white.
They're recycled, reconstructed.
These walls are more original
because nothing's left of the Hurva, just the arch
and just one, this wall, stayed in place.
So,
the reconstruction
is a perfect reconstruction of what happened here.
Just a second, stand here and continue explaining.
I'll film what you're saying from behind you.
Talk to me, not to him.
We didn't pray here.
No, this was an Ashkenazi synagogue, mainly.
They prayed here.
They were the...
There were sometimes special events...
they didn't really...
the Sephardim had their own synagogues.
The Ashkenazim had their own synagogues.
But wasn't there a special event?
No, no special events.
I just remember the groups of the yeshiva students that came here.
Can you show us where they sat? -They sat over there.
They sat, there was a long table over here.
And... yes.
A long table and the yeshiva students sat around it.
There was a lamp here
and this is where they learned Torah, Talmud and Gemara in the evening.
There weren't many... -No, a small group.
It was a small table, around 8 people or so.
About the stained glass. The bottom windows were...
I remember the upper windows, they were all stained glass.
They weren't...
Why did you come here? Just because of Yona?
Haham Yona came and took me.
He took me to the nearest synagogue. - So you didn't go further in?
Beyond that, to pray, we prayed in Sephardic synagogues.
Everything looks nicely refurbished. -Yes, really.
Okay, yes.
Nothing was done in this area.
No, I don't remember this area. I was there, in that corner.
Come to me. Come here.
I have a question.
I understood your memories of this place.
What do the others remember of this place?
We have no memories here, just from the outside.
David was here because he studied Talmud.
Our father sent him to study.
Beyond that, we had no contact with the synagogue.
We went to Sephardic synagogues
and this was Ashkenazi. So we didn't...
We had nothing to do with this synagogue.
Did you come in here, as kids?
Not me, I didn't come in.
I don't remember, but I remember the name Hurva.
It was related to many places in our lives.
Mother would say, I was near the Hurva and I did...
and the neighbors lived by the Hurva...
But the worst was hearing that the Hurva was destroyed during the war.
That was horrible. -When was that?
The War of Independence. -What do you remember of that report?
We were traumatized
by all of the things that happened to the city.
The Hurva was a symbol. -It was a symbol.
A source of pride, when it was hit... it's not an ordinary house.
It's the Hurva (ruins), true to its name.
No, it had a different name.
Yes... -Beit Yacov...
No, no, no, no.
They said that the Hurva was built when the German emperor visited
and they didn't complete the dome
so he asked the question and was told:
"The dome was removed in honor of your visit."
He was among the financiers of the Hurva.
The Hurva was more ruined than built.
That's why it was called the Hurva.
During the war, the symbol accompanied Judaism.
And once again, the Hurva fell.
Do you remember where you were when you heard that it fell?
We were at home, on our streets.
We also felt the fall, the disappearance of the dome
of the Nisan Bak Synagogue.
We saw that, the built dome,
we saw it after the explosion.
How long was that before the surrender?
It was... -A week or two.
Our concept of time is a bit confused,
so is the order of events. We don't know what came first.
It all happened within a short period of time.
There were many events, a lot of action.
A lot of rockets.
We saw the rockets... -I remember the soldiers talking,
we were at home and we heard things that,
perhaps as children, we shouldn't have heard.
So one said: "300 missiles
"didn't ruin the Nisan Bak dome."
I remember one of the soldiers saying that.
The Jewish story,
we were concentrated...
There was a synagogue, which one?
Look, the concentrations... We're not invading.
The concentrations, since they couldn't protect us,
they had to concentrate us in the synagogue.
In those five synagogues, Istambuli
and Batei Mahse,
there was a center were the underground
could defend the public.
It was very crowded, people sat on each other.
There were issues of hygiene, cooking, issues of...
This whole ordeal went on for about two weeks.
Two weeks earlier, you could deal with the crowds
but when the legion came in with the army
the war became more difficult.
But we ran away from there, away from that place...
and decided to go home.
Luckily, we were in the middle of the protected area
and two families could stay in one apartment, one room
and it was roomier.
What do you remember of the Hurva?
Because we'll talk about the house in the house.
The Hurva, look.
Beyond the few visits that I remember,
this was an Ashkenazi synagogue.
And we were...
But I think it's located where we used to play as kids.
It had a dominant presence.
At the entrance to the market... -Not that it's disappeared,
it's dominant, it's here. It's with us when we play.
It's like... something noble standing here
and you're around it, playing until the evening.
Do you remember how you felt about the Hurva as kids?
As kids who didn't come here. What did you feel?
It was an impressive building.
It was a very impressive building, compared to the surroundings.
It was very dignified.
It was sacred, lofty.
It wasn't considered a regular building.
We knew that it was special in the Old City.
Where to?
This was a very simple Sephardic synagogue. -Where?
It's not here now. -Show us.
At the end, there was a yard.
Now there are steps and...
this yard went on.
Sephardim lived here,
Sephardic families.
That was a synagogue, I don't even remember its name,
but I remember one Yom Kippur,
coming here with my father.
I came to the synagogue with my father
and before Yom Kippur, I took the Shofar, trying to blow it.
I did okay.
When Yom Kippur ends,
there's the Tkia.
The Tkia is when you take the Shofar and blow it
with a segmented tempo.
I stood on the bench toward the end of the prayer
and I saw the Shofar lying there.
I picked it up and joined the blowers
and I blew and blew.
Everyone ran out of breath, they couldn't breathe anymore
and that little guy just kept on going.
Everyone waited for me to finish blowing
and then the prayer ended.
Do you remember the name of that synagogue? -No.
Haim, we called it Haim's synagogue.
No, it's not. Haim's is at Sha'ar Ha-Shamayim,
it's not the same synagogue.
The Sephardic synagogue.
We went to Haim on Friday afternoon.
My father went to the Hurva on Shabbat mornings
and that's where we prayed
a few times,
including Yom Kippur. He probably wanted to feel
closer in terms of religion,
perhaps it was better for him.
So is this what they called the Sephardic synagogue?
No, no. It's a very...
It's funny that there's no mention here, I remember it on the corner.
I remember there was a restroom here
for the neighbors,
all of the residents here.
Maybe 5 restrooms, I even remember using them.
That's why... I might've held it in...
I don't remember it like this.
I remember someone's name.