Tag #126721 - Interview #78141 (Bina Dekalo)

My maternal grandfather, Mordohay Behmoaras, was very conservative. He forbade his daughters to walk freely beside a man and married them to the men who chose them. I saw my maternal grandparents a number of times. They lived in Odrin, which is in Turkey. Grandfather Mordohay was a chazzan in Odrin. He had a beard and wore a special hat, which was part of his special costume as a chazzan in the synagogue and a black cloak with stripes. His hat was small and round, black in color with seams in the middle, which were sewn with golden thread. This was his uniform, which he always wore. I went to visit my grandfather in Odrin and I have seen the synagogue there. My first impression from that synagogue was that it was richer than the one in Yambol and there were a lot of candlesticks with gas lamps in them. The Odrin synagogue had marble walls, which I found very beautiful. The synagogue in Yambol was made of bricks, which were whitewashed and painted. I remember that the Jews in Odrin were different from the other people. All men had a small well-formed beard and behaved differently. They were reserved and polite and always greeted each other in Ivrit.