A family photo of the Revah family

From right to left, on the uppermost row you can see my cousin Julieta. My other cousin Zelma is dressed in yellow, the third from right to left in the same row. The fifth from right to left on that row is my sister Milka Revah. The man from left to right, sitting, is my brother Miko Kohen. Sinto Kohen is wearing a white shirt. My cousin Eti is wearing a blue dress. Rofat Revah is also on the photo, he is wearing glasses. I cannot remember the names of the others, I only know that they are cousins. The photo was taken in 1988 in Tel Aviv.

My sister Milka Beniamin Revah was born on 13th April 1921 in Samokov. Milka became a social worker in Israel (she had a university education in Bulgaria) and now she has two lovely sons there. All I know about her family is that Milka married before she left - to Rofat Revah in 1940, who was from Plovdiv and I lived with them in Samokov for a while. They still live in Israel today and have a good family, children and grandchildren. My sister has two boys: Izak Rofat Revah and Beniamin Rofat Revah. Currently Izak lives in Canada. He works as an engineer there.

I have been to Israel three times. I visited my relatives, friends and acquaintances. I remember that when I first arrived in Israel, I was welcomed by a sequence of sunny, bight, fresh and hot days. I was most fascinated by the thriving greenery in Israel, which was everywhere - in the cities, kibbutzim, flats, on the roofs, roads, in the synagogues and parks. I also noticed that the beautiful magnolias, rubber plants, jasmine, hedges, grass and all flowers were looked after with love not only by the common people, but also by municipal employees.

And the people in Israel really managed to have fun! We were in Tel Aviv during the visit of Luciano Pavarotti. He had to perform together with the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the famous Zubin Meta. The tickets were 400 shekels each, which was quite expensive. But many Israeli were interested in music and the interest in the famous singer was even greater, so the sponsoring companies decided to place an enormous screen on the square, and benches in front of it. Naturally a multitude of music lovers filled the square, there were many people standing or sitting on the ground, all of them clapping and cheering and shouting with joy. I also witnessed the Sukkot celebrations in Israel. The same square was once again overfilled with people dancing, everyone singing, it was really spectacular. Both the young and the old had a really great time.