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The Elsa and Klara Angel sisters lived on Ferit Bey Street in Talimhane [a district near Taksim, on the European side of Istanbul]. Their house was just opposite the Turkish state school. Later the school was transferred somewhere else and the building started to be used as ‘Askerlik Subesi’ [Military Department]. In the thirties we used to rent motorcycles in the meadow at the end of the street and tour around the square ‘para azer hadras’ [an expression in Ladino meaning ‘in order to show off for the girls’].
Their father, Yaakov Angel, passed away when they were children, so they had been raised by their mother, Fortune Mazaltov Angel, and their maternal grandparents, the Kasavis [Cassavi]. Elia Kasavi, their maternal grandfather, was a money-changer and also the mukhtar [the elected head of a village or a neighborhood within a town or city] of Talimhane. A pious but liberal thinking man, he was married to Klara Salti and had two children: a daughter and a son. The daughter was Fortune Mazaltov, who had two daughters and had been widowed very young. Fortune Mazaltov was my mother-in-law twice: when I married Elsa and then, after her death, when I married Klara. Kasavi’s son, Rafael, was a veteran of World War I. He and his wife Rebecca had three children: Sara, Yaakov and Eli. Eli is today a member of the Communal Council of the Etz Hayim Synagogue in Ortakoy, a neighborhood of Istanbul.
Elsa and I got married on 30th June 1936 in the Kal Kadosh Galata [Zulfaris] Synagogue [15], which became The Museum of Turkish Jews in 2001. We spent our honeymoon in the Belvu Hotel in Fenerbahce. Then we moved into my mother-in-law’s house. We didn’t want her to live all alone. She had been widowed at an early age and was used to living together with her daughters Elsa and Klara. Three years later, just on the eve of World War II, we joined a ten-day cruise on the ‘Bessarabia’ to Romania, where we visited Bucharest and different sites.
Their father, Yaakov Angel, passed away when they were children, so they had been raised by their mother, Fortune Mazaltov Angel, and their maternal grandparents, the Kasavis [Cassavi]. Elia Kasavi, their maternal grandfather, was a money-changer and also the mukhtar [the elected head of a village or a neighborhood within a town or city] of Talimhane. A pious but liberal thinking man, he was married to Klara Salti and had two children: a daughter and a son. The daughter was Fortune Mazaltov, who had two daughters and had been widowed very young. Fortune Mazaltov was my mother-in-law twice: when I married Elsa and then, after her death, when I married Klara. Kasavi’s son, Rafael, was a veteran of World War I. He and his wife Rebecca had three children: Sara, Yaakov and Eli. Eli is today a member of the Communal Council of the Etz Hayim Synagogue in Ortakoy, a neighborhood of Istanbul.
Elsa and I got married on 30th June 1936 in the Kal Kadosh Galata [Zulfaris] Synagogue [15], which became The Museum of Turkish Jews in 2001. We spent our honeymoon in the Belvu Hotel in Fenerbahce. Then we moved into my mother-in-law’s house. We didn’t want her to live all alone. She had been widowed at an early age and was used to living together with her daughters Elsa and Klara. Three years later, just on the eve of World War II, we joined a ten-day cruise on the ‘Bessarabia’ to Romania, where we visited Bucharest and different sites.
Period
Location
/İstanbul
Türkiye
Interview
Eli (Eliyau) Perahya