Aunt Sarina, my Mother’s elder aunt, lived in Küçük Hendek
(Footnote 39) Street in the Galata Tower district of İstanbul. Right across the entrance to the street there was a flea market. At this market one could purchase old furniture, antiques and all kinds of interesting objects. Buyers and sellers would walk in and out carrying mattresses, bed posts, lamps and much more. The Turkish saying, “If eighty people walked in, ninety walked out,” well described the activity at the flea market.

Aunt Sarina was short and skinny. Her face with her gray hair tied in a bun gave her a sad appearance. She was always dressed in black as expected of elderly Jewish widows at the time. My Father would insist that this custom was borrowed from the Greeks and that it was not a Jewish custom.

Aunt Sarina lived there with her daughter Rashel at the entrance floor of this old and neglected building. The two had a small room with a bed used as a sofa, a small table and a closet. The room opened to the dark corridor and a single window faced the street. Aunt Sarina spent most of her time sitting by the window and watching the passersby.

A small portable gasoline heater would warm up the room during the cold winter months. The table was always covered with a neatly embroidered cover and a candy bowl stood in the middle. Photographs of aunt Sarina’s loved ones, decorated the walls of this modest room. These were portraits of her late husband and her elder daughter who lived in Israel with her family.

Rachel, her younger daughter, was never married. In contrast to her mother, she was a tall woman with a big smile on her face. Rachel had a modest life, as well, and worked at a pantyhose factory. We used to call her by her last name, “Rachel Rofe” to differentiate her from the other Rachels in the family.

When my Mother and I came to the Galata Tower district to shop, we used to visit her aunt. My Mother knocked on the window and aunt Sarina would open the door. Once inside, the two started talking loudly in Judeo-Spanish and shared news about the family members. While they were caught in the emotional conversation, I would watch the activity at the flea market and fall asleep on the tall bed.

At the time, the communication with Israel was through letters. It was said that in Israel the widows did not dress in black, they dressed like everybody else and seemed happier. It was in aunt Sarina’s small room that I heard about Bat Yam
(footnote 40) a neighborhood in Tel-Aviv for the first time. From that day on, Bat Yam became the center of interest for the family and a glimpse of hope. It was Bat Yam here and Bat Yam there. To me, Bat Yam came across as a happy place by the sea. In Bat Yam, according to aunt Sarina, her elder daughter had a happy family life. The photographs and post cards from Israel retold the story of a heaven in the Holy Land with palm trees, where only Jews lived with no worries.

Years went by, my Mother and I continued to visit aunt Sarina and received good news from Israel: 

“In Israel immigrants receive homes… in Israel there are no unpleasant customs…in Israel young women find husbands …in Israel Baruh haShem

(Footnote 41) the women have jobs and the elderly live in i bet zikenim  

(Footnote 42) paid by the government and their medications are covered too.

    Sons and daughter transform to tsabarim

(Footnote 43) and serve the Israeli Army. Everyone attended the ulpan

(Footnote 44) for free and learned the Hebrew language. Baruh haShem, the elderly have pensions and there isn’t even a need for gasoline heaters. The warmth of the sun and the sea resuscitate even the dead!” 

When summer came, we all went to the Asian side of İstanbul for a couple of months, but aunt Sarina remained in the old Galata Tower district, and we would not visit her for that period. Later as I reached school age, I stopped going to visit aunt Sarina with my Mother.