Tag #127171 - Interview #97664 (Yasef Romano)

In my childhood, I think close to 15,000 Jews lived in Edirne. The Sabbath days had a special place. That day, after leaving the synagogue, we would go strolling to parks, to river banks. Saturdays was a different event for us.  Everyone dressed well. There was a park called Bulbul Parki (Nightingale Park), ladies, gentlemen, when they left the synagogue they would eat their dezayuno [Ladino term for breakfast] (boreks) there. On Saturdays, this event was known among the Turks too. There was a beautiful unity. This will be considered a reproach, but today’s Grand Rabbinate in Istanbul cannot provide this unity. Here everything is about materialism. I am still on the Board of Consultants of the Jewish community, one day we are at a meeting of the Board of Consultants. Naim Guleryuz was presiding. “Dear Yasef, would you like to say something too?”  I said “Yes”, the Grand Rabbi was then David Asseo. “I have a complaint about you, you cannot inspire the Jews in Turkey with unity, accord or brotherhood.  Please do not create separatism. In addition, the subject that bothers me most is assimilation. In the future this is going to be a big problem. Please let’s take measures against this. Let’s be in unity and accord with Jews.  A small child cannot go to Dostluk Yurdu [Jewish Youth Club founded in 1966]. It is a question of money. You only look at it from above” I reproached them. I still think this way. They help a lot, they educate students, but it stays at this level. Why, they do their own advertisements. After that I did not go to a meeting of the Board of Consultants again. There was a lot of unity and accord in Edirne. My father was a very strict man, but he paid a lot of attention to solidarity among Jews. We were all like a family. Whenever someone had a problem, or someone had a happy occasion, we would run there. That is to say we shared everything.  We lived through the good days and bad, the sweet and the beautiful together.