יחסי יהודים וסביבתם

There was the Wadi…a neighbourhood which was mostly Jewish. But there were Jews…a bit further. In neighbourhoods where Muslims lived, (for example) Sabra, there were no Jews there. 

The Jews had…the Wadi. And close to the sea too there were also residents. They were kind of clustered together. They weren’t very divided. Later…but in the heart of the Wadi, it wasn’t just Jews. There were Christians. There were Muslims. There were Alawites. Like in Hosh Ayass. The Hosh was very big. And there were several buildings. But the majority knew each other. But in Hosh Ayass there were also Kurds. Kurds…Muslims. I didn’t know that there were Kurdish Jews. Later, when we grew up, we learned and heard that there was (a thing called) Kurdistan and Jews there. Like the Kurds who were opposite us, their voices were always loud and they were continuously fighting. We had neighbours here, they were very kind hearted. But what (was the issue)? They were continuously fighting. They raised their voices. Once my cousin from America came to visit me. We were sitting on the balcony, doing preparations for my son’s wedding, and she said to me “do you hear her!? You didn’t change a thing.”. When they would be arguing in Beirut, in Hosh Ayass, a distance of…from here to […], about the distance of half a kilometre from our house, we would hear them arguing all the way in our house. They would…my father would circumcise their sons. When they wanted to scare the kids, they’d say to them “I’ll call the circumciser now! Listen to (obey) (my) word!”. There were also…in the Wadi…for who would we make coffee? For everybody who came! Whether it was the plumber, the plumber. Whether it was a tradesperson. If it were one of those people, it (bringing coffee) was a given. If it were, I mean, an unknown man - a cup of coffee was a must. Our neighbour was a seamstress. A Christian seamstress. She would sew bridal trousseaus. Later…