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The Behar kin was Sarah’s kin, the wife of Tsar Ivan Alexander [a Bulgarian tsar from the beginning of the 14th century], who gave birth to Tsar Ivan Shishman [the last Bulgarian tsar before the medieval Bulgarian state fell under the Ottomans in 1392]. I know this from my mother’s stories. Her father belonged to that kin, while her mother was from the Sephardic Jews.
My maternal grandfather was called Isak Behar, and I was named after him. Yet, my mother and her brother, who was two years older than her, were orphaned at an early age and were raised by their aunt as her own children. She herself had seven daughters and two sons.
My mother had attended school, she knew how to read and write. When she grew up, a young guy, a sandal maker from a good family saw her and wished to marry her, and she agreed. He was a Jew from Dupnitsa, who had come to Sofia and there he noticed her and proposed marriage to her. She accepted and married him, and thus she went to live in Dupnitsa at his father’s place.
Her husband was from the Pilosof kin. They lived together from 1910 to 1911 but in 1912 the war started [First Balkan War]. He went to fight in the war, and she was already pregnant. He left for the front line and never came back. Meanwhile she gave birth to a girl, my sister Oro.
Unfortunately, as it often happens in such cases the boy’s parents wanted to get rid of her. She wrote a letter to her brother and he took her back to Sofia together with the baby.
My father, Avram-Nissim Levi, learned about her when he went to Sofia and he proposed marriage to her. At first she didn’t agree but her brother’s wife – as he was already married and she used to live at their place – told her, probably because she wanted to get rid of her, ‘Well, he is the right man for you and you should take this chance!’
And so she accepted despite the great age difference: she was 23 to24 years old, while my father was 48; she could have been his daughter. And she got married to my father and they settled in Gorna Dzhumaya. I was born after nine months, in 1914, on 6th December during the Chanukkah holiday. I am my father’s firstborn child and my mother’s second one.
After that my mother gave birth every two years. Two years after I was born, in 1917, she gave birth to my brother David; after that, in 1919, my brother Mordechai was born; in 1921 my sister Adela was born; in 1923 my mother had a miscarriage, and in 1925 she gave birth to my youngest brother, Yosif. Our age difference was ten years.
My maternal grandfather was called Isak Behar, and I was named after him. Yet, my mother and her brother, who was two years older than her, were orphaned at an early age and were raised by their aunt as her own children. She herself had seven daughters and two sons.
My mother had attended school, she knew how to read and write. When she grew up, a young guy, a sandal maker from a good family saw her and wished to marry her, and she agreed. He was a Jew from Dupnitsa, who had come to Sofia and there he noticed her and proposed marriage to her. She accepted and married him, and thus she went to live in Dupnitsa at his father’s place.
Her husband was from the Pilosof kin. They lived together from 1910 to 1911 but in 1912 the war started [First Balkan War]. He went to fight in the war, and she was already pregnant. He left for the front line and never came back. Meanwhile she gave birth to a girl, my sister Oro.
Unfortunately, as it often happens in such cases the boy’s parents wanted to get rid of her. She wrote a letter to her brother and he took her back to Sofia together with the baby.
My father, Avram-Nissim Levi, learned about her when he went to Sofia and he proposed marriage to her. At first she didn’t agree but her brother’s wife – as he was already married and she used to live at their place – told her, probably because she wanted to get rid of her, ‘Well, he is the right man for you and you should take this chance!’
And so she accepted despite the great age difference: she was 23 to24 years old, while my father was 48; she could have been his daughter. And she got married to my father and they settled in Gorna Dzhumaya. I was born after nine months, in 1914, on 6th December during the Chanukkah holiday. I am my father’s firstborn child and my mother’s second one.
After that my mother gave birth every two years. Two years after I was born, in 1917, she gave birth to my brother David; after that, in 1919, my brother Mordechai was born; in 1921 my sister Adela was born; in 1923 my mother had a miscarriage, and in 1925 she gave birth to my youngest brother, Yosif. Our age difference was ten years.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Isak Avram Levi