Tag #123237 - Interview #95855 (Ida Alkalai)

During the mass aliyah all my uncles left for Israel. That was the mass emigration of Jews from Bulgaria to Israel. My husband and I also wanted to leave. We did whatever my husband said. He didn’t want to leave because of his parents, because they had also decided to stay. It was very difficult to emigrate then because there was no one there to help you. You traveled by steamboat then. The people who emigrated packed their luggage in wooden boxes, so that they could use the wood to make sheds when they arrived. Now, with the help of relatives there, it’s much easier. It’s difficult to find a job in Israel, but it’s different from our times. Thanks to our older son, Nissim, our younger son, Zhak, managed to find a job. My father didn’t want to leave because of me, because my husband and I decided to stay. My parents also stayed in Dupnitsa and died here. Now my husband and I regret not leaving, because now we are alone without our kids, who are in Israel. We didn’t regret our decision earlier. We love Bulgaria and didn’t feel the need to emigrate. We often corresponded with our relatives in Israel. Now we keep in touch with my children by phone. The last time we visited Israel was four years ago.