And then I progressed bit by bit. I travelled to London to learn English. I was very strong in Latin language…in the Latin languages. And I returned here and got married, and worked. I was always working. Then we travelled to America. We were in New York for about seven years. Then we returned to Israel. The whole time I wanted to return to be around my family. There’s nowhere like Israel, but at the start I didn’t like it. Over time, I liked it a lot. We didn’t lack anything. Life here is very close to how it was in Beirut. People are very…talk to each other, help each other, whether Arab or Jews. We’re the same. Just like in Beirut. In Beirut we lived…Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Christians, Druze…we were in the same building. There was no problem.

Then, after our building had to be demolished, we moved to Ayn El Mrayseh. Ayn El Mrayseh is a Muslim neighbourhood. And we were there about two years when the Six Day War started. And we were at the Alliance school. They said “hurry hurry, the war between Israel and Arab countries has started”. We immediately went home by taxi. It was very scary, because in our building there were many Muslims, there were Christians, and they didn’t like us. We closed the door. But the owner of the building knocked on our door and said, “if you need anything, don’t go out to the street. Don’t go outside or they might kill you. I’ll bring you whatever you need.” We didn’t leave the house for seven days. Before we went out, after the war, when the war started we went into the house. We saw words written in a large font: “Zionist! Slaughter the Zionist! Throw him in the sea! Many things against Jews were written in Arabic. And they were all doing this stuff and shouting “kill the Jews! Slaughter the Jews!”. It was very scary. Seven days passed, which weren’t easy. We went back to school. The Phalangists helped us. They would stand out the front of the school and protect us. Then one family started…a terrorist killed a Jew. Then they kidnapped a Jew. Things against Jews started happening. We were at school and my mother said to me “you have one night to say ‘bye bye’ to your friends. Tomorrow we’re leaving to Israel. And your father isn’t coming with us”. It was a very big shock because we had no prior knowledge of this. We had friends, and school, the brevet - we had started the brevet diploma.

Every Friday night, we would go to a place called Gigi R. We would meet there and open the holy book, the bible. And we’d read in it “lekha dodi, likrat Shabbat”. We would do a sort of Shabbat - we, I mean the children. The students. And then we would feel as though we were doing Shabbat, and we would say “Shabbat shalom”. And we would go home.

In the very beginning, we lived in a building which was owned fully by Jews, and every night we would meet up. There was the the Hayim family and Roni Mann, Joseph and Roza Baghdadi and mami, Yvonne and Marius Grego. We would have dinner together every night, the children would play together and the family would be together for many years. I even remember in the…what’s it called? The civil war that was in Lebanon in 1957 (?) how they were firing. We we were sitting at our neighbour’s place and bullets came through the windows. But we were always together until…later, the building got old, and everyone moved to a different place. My father decided to live with Muslims. We were in the Ayn El-Mreisseh neighbourhood. In our building there were the Negri and Mahlab families. And I communicate with all…with many people from the community, the community. And we fulfil and preserve things from home, the Lebanese Jewish traditions. The holidays, the Lebanese food from my mother. And at home we weren’t kosher. My father worked with the French. He grew up with the French. And I felt a bit foreign, not like everyone. But we would go to the neighbours place, listen to the holidays and listen to kiddush, go to the synagogue. My uncle was very, very, very religious. He worked at the synagogue. And he would smuggle Jews coming from Syria to Israel via Beirut. He would hide them in the synagogue and help them flee. Today there are very few Jews in Beirut. I have two cousins who live in Beirut and married with non-Jews. And I’m in communication with their children and with them.

Rosh HaShana…we would do the holidays with family together. But Rosh HaShana we did for two nights - one night for Israel and one for abroad. And Passover too, we did two nights. And we would always do it at my uncle’s house, who was […] lived with him. All of the holidays we were all together there. Yom Kippur…they would take us to do kapparot in a place where they would bring all the chickens…and do (swing it in a circle) kapparot, kapparot, kapparot. That’s how we would commemorate it. I didn’t like it because it was very strong to slaughter it in front of us for kapparot. That’s how the tradition was before Yom Kippur. And later…we would come. Yom Kippur we would go to the synagogue. My father who was…we weren’t, religious but we would fast on Yom Kippur. And…we would meet, all of us, together there. There was the big synagogue, and at Alliance, the school, below, there was a small synagogue. We would go to Alliance, underneath. The whole community would meet and fast, and walk and be together. We did the holidays very nicely. Then, on Sukkot, they would make a big sukkah, and they would do slikhot and you would hear […] in every place. Even from the Wadi we would hear from Normandy and we would…because it wasn’t very far. The Jews would work…in all jobs, all the professions. But in many cases they would work between each other; this person would sell to here, this kosher one would sell to the Jews…and it was very interesting. The meat, we would go to the person selling kosher meat.

After the Six Day War, which was in June…in December, my mother said to us one day before “prepare yourselves - tomorrow we’re going”. We didn’t know a thing before. I was at school, and I had started the brevet. They were scared to say it. We left - me, my mother and two sisters. Dad stayed in Beirut. He couldn’t come. And at first, he didn’t want to come to Israel. We travelled via Turkey and…three days. I was crying, because we were scared. We didn’t know what Israel was. We didn’t have anybody (in Israel). And we arrived here. It wasn’t easy. At first, mom was on her own. They gave us a house in Herzliya. Ground floor. We slept on our own. After, I went to Meir Shfeya, me and my sister Vicky who passed away, may she rest in peace. Then, I came back a year later. I went to Herzliya high school. I did regular 10th grade, and then I went back and did clerical 10th grade and clerical 11th grade. I left, and later dad came to Israel. We were scared because there wasn’t much money. I started working […], and thank Gd everything was good. And dad came to Israel and worked at Bank HaPoalim. My sisters studied…my sister finished the bagrut. I only did clerical 11th grade. I mean, I finished with a secretary diploma. That’s how we studied. We started working, and thank Gd.