Tag #124133 - Interview #95940 (Victoria Almalekh)

My father didn’t have his own home in Sofia. He married my mother by matchmaking. How did they meet? One of my aunts (Soultana – my mother’s sister) used to live in Sofia near Ekzarh Yosif Street and the Synagogue [The Great Synagogue] [7]. [Jewish neighborhoods in Sofia] [8] She used to live in lodgings, which was synonymous to poverty. She was the poorest in the entire family. So this aunt of mine was a friend to a cousin of my father’s. She introduced my mother Rashel Pinkas-Levi (1893-1977) to my father and they got married. The not so short distance between Sofia and Vidin didn’t matter. What did was that there was someone who did the matching. Otherwise people stay single like my son and my sister. I can’t say for sure if my parents married for love. Their marriage was arranged. But they stuck to one another till death parted them and the different generations at home were always on good terms. My father moved to Vidin with my mother, because he didn’t have his own home. Both he and my grandmother Vintoura moved to my mother’s paternal house. In Vidin my father found not only that they owned a private home but also a store that belonged to my mother.