Educational institutions

The school was…Alliance Israelite Universelle, which was…its centre was in Paris. There were teachers…for Hebrew, there were teachers from Israel. One…Mademoiselle Tawil, Mademoiselle Sofer…I don’t know if she was from Israel. And the principal (male), and the principal (female), Monsieur and Madame Silver…there was also Monsieur Pinto, Madame Pinto, two principals of Alliance. But…when…[…] at Alliance, Madame and Monsieur Penso passed away, may they rest in peace. Then they brought another principal…I don’t know where from, if he was from Paris or from another place, to teach French. The Alliance Israelite, I mean…it had Jewish students. There were a few non-Jewish students…the children of the Arabic language teachers. They would teach French, Arabic, Hebrew and reading and writing…I mean writing…even if the child was three years old. Normally four years old. There were people who would dare approach the principal (saying), “please, this child is smart. He’s smart, even if he isn’t four years old yet. Try him! Try him!” He entered (the school). Three years old! Soon, (they’ll be putting a child aged) two and a half years! But (at age) three years, we would read and write in three languages. In the sixth grade, I mean, middle school, English - they added English (classes). And classes…I learned at Alliance, but there was also…branches (streams). There were branches for girls for the middle school. In the sixth grade. Branches…they were called ecole populaire. And there was the director Madame Pichoto. (It was) only girls. But it wasn’t in the same building as Alliance. Alliance went up to the brevet, I mean middle school, and after the ecole populaire they would do middle school in Alliance. In the building. There was also…Talmud Torah. Talmud Torah…they taught more religion. But they also taught French, Arabic and Hebrew in a building close to the synagogue. And…also to middle school. Then they went to Alliance. Talmud Torah was only for boys. Ecole populare was only for girls, until sixth grade, and after they went to Alliance for brevet. Brevet…was like the baccalaureate…but three years earlier. The end of middle school…the end of middle school. After, in sixth grade, those who left school…there were people who left school when they were twelve years old. They paid money for Alliance but at Alliance they took (fees) according to the father’s income. There were people who stopped at sixth grade. At sixth grade there was a diploma called “certificate”. End of primary school. And why did they do this? Because even if they left school when they were twelve or thirteen years old, so they could then go to work…if one left (school), he would have something in his hand. He would have a certificate, diploma. He’d have a certificate in his hand (saying) that he was educated. He didn’t remain without knowledge. And that’s the good thing about Alliance Israelite. They had it in Iran, in Turkey, they were in Lebanon, in Syria, in Morocco, and Algeria…they all had the Alliance Israelite Schools.