Tag #125731 - Interview #97938 (Moiz Isman)

There were neither horse carriages, nor cars, in the neighborhoods I was brought up. Everyone walked to wherever they were going. The streets were cobbled. I suppose we were 40-50 families in the neighborhood. Besides the Knesset Israel [the synagogue in the neighborhood], there were synagogues in Balat and Haskoy [the other Jewish neighborhoods around] (The Sisli Synagogue and the Neve Shalom Synagogue were opened later on). It was a typical Jewish neighborhood. We had two Shohets [shochetim] (unfortunately I don’t remember their names). These people also did Beritmila [brith millah] besides doing the shohet [shochet] work. We had Palachi, the hazan [hazzan]. Our chief rabbi was “Rafael Saban” [he was the grandfather of Rıfat Saban, who was the president of the Jewish Community in 1998]. We had the “Azara” [azarah] [the place where women sat in the synagogues]. There gathered around 30-40 women at Keila Shabat [keillah shabbath] [the prayers done on Shabat nights]. I’ve been going to synagogue every Friday and Saturday since I knew myself.