Maurice Leon with friends from Maccabi

This is a Maccabi group photograph. It was taken in 1935, outside the Maccabi club in Thessaloniki. From right to left are: Elie Cohen, Elie Sciaky, Tory Beza, Saragoussi, me, Maurice Leon, Sason and Marsel Natzari. Maccabi was a club were Jewish children were gathered. It had a very good library, too. We would have scouts meetings, went on excursions, played ball games and things like that. I started going there at the age of ten. And although in the meantime we changed houses, I still continued going to Maccabi. Our house on Italias Street was not very far from our old house. The Zionist issue was very developed there. We had meetings where they were talking to us about Zionism and Palestine. As Maccabi group we took part at the National Parades on Greek National Holidays such as 25th March and the rest. We would wear our scouts uniform which included a green color neckerchief and the various Maccabi scouts emblems. These scouts meeting were something very strong in our childhood years. We would go on excursions to Chortiatis. There we would go for walks in the forest. We went on excursions to the School of Agriculture and to the sea for swimming. Our team leader would urge us to get involved in the various activities organized. We would gather approximately 30 children. We could also find very interesting books at the Maccabi library. I served as a librarian for a period of time there. I liked reading very much. Back then we didn't have television and things like that.