“The history of the Bulgarian Jews is very old. The first Jewish settlers arrived here over 2000 years ago in the time of the Christian apostles.” This was the opening line of the conversation with Maxim Benvenisti, chairman of the organization of the Jews in Bulgaria Shalom, about the history, traditions and holidays celebrated by the Jewish community in Bulgaria.
“The Bulgarian Jews are an integrated community. Mixed marriages with Bulgarians are very common,” says Maxim Benvenisti. He adds, “There are no physical features that distinguish us from the rest of the people while we are in the public transport, restaurants or offices. Only our names reveal who we are.”
“Jews in Bulgaria live like all other Bulgarian citizens but they also have their Jewish life. It is related to the calendar of Jewish holidays, marked by Jews across the globe, and historic events which are related to the initial Jewish settling in these lands. We also mark the extermination of 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. In brief, the Bulgarian Jews are a well-organized community which has always been marked by patriotism and has always been an inseparable part of the Bulgarian people,” says Maxim Benvenisti.
Shalom has 3800 members and unites 16 regional Jewish organizations from the whole of Bulgaria. 60 per cent of Bulgarian Jews live in the capital Sofia. Alongside Shalom, there are another 8 Jewish organizations, 21 for youth, 2 for women, one for sports, one lodge – historically known as B’nai-Brith and one federation of the Zionists in Bulgaria. Shalom is part of the global Jewish community. There are constant contacts and participation in joint projects with some of the largest Jewish organizations in the world. Each regional Jewish organization has its own building and the largest one in Bulgaria is in the capital Sofia. The building also hosts the Jewish history museum and Shalom publishes a newspaper – The Jewish News. For over a century now, the symbol of the Jewish community in Bulgaria has been the central synagogue of Sofia, the second largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe.
“Business is not our strongest point and we don’t have even a single oligarch,” says Maxim Benvenisti this way disproving false claims for the rich Jews and he goes on to explain that in their majority Bulgarian Jews are intellectuals. Among them are Elias Canetti, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981; the world-famous painter Julius Mordecai Pincas, a.k.a. Jules Pascin or "The Prince of Montparnasse"; Prof. Issac Passi – a world prominent philosopher; Milcho Leviev – a outstanding name on the global jazz stage; Valeri Petrov – a poet and the best translator of the works of William Shakespeare into Bulgarian; rock legend Kiril Marichkov; actor and writer Izhak Fintzi; film director Angel Wagenstein and many others.
The Bulgarian Jews are Sephardic. In fact, the last Sephardic Jews arrived in Bulgaria from Spain about 500 years ago. “The difference between the two main branches of Jewry – the German-speaking Ashkenazi and the Spanish-speaking Sephardi – has long ago disappeared in Bulgaria. There is one unified Jewish community,” explains Maxim Benvenisti. There is one event in Bulgarian history which has left its imprint in the historical memory of the Jews. This is the saving of the entire 49,000-stong Bulgarian Jewish community from the concentration camps during WWII.
“As long as there’s even a single Bulgarian Jew somewhere in this world, not only in Bulgaria, he or she will always remember the Bulgarian people and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for the goodness in saving their Jewish countrymen from extermination. This is a historical fact. With their civil consciousness and human compassion, the ordinary Bulgarians of the time gained the respect of their politicians and prevented them from sending the Bulgarian Jews to certain perishing in the death camps,” says Maxim Benvenisti.
Along the traditional holidays marked by the Bulgarian Jews, there’s one no less prominent. It is the 10th of March when they were protected by the Bulgarian people who protested against their government and made it overrule its order for deportation of Jews to the death camps.
Usually the Jewish holidays are not loud and attractive. They are usually celebrated at home, around a table laden with good food. There are a few accessories which every Jewish family must have in its home – the Hanukkah candles and mezuzah – a tiny square box, mounted on the door and containing a parchment inscribed with a blessing for the home. Which is the most important tale for the Jews?
“Well, this is a though question,” says Maxim Benvenisti. “The whole of Jewish history is one large tale so much so that we cannot distinguish fact from fiction. If Jews have one quality which makes them stand out, this is their creativity. In the modern world we live in most of the exotic inventions are Jewish. Think of the music hall in London, the cinema in Hollywood, the stock exchange and even Google. Jews like to dream, but without dreaming and creativity there is no development.”
The Bulgarian Jewish cuisine is Mediterranean and kosher. “Simply explained, it is the first system for hay diet in the world. Our cuisine is very hot, with lots of pepper and garlic but, of course, no pork. The Jewish cuisine is sometimes excessive in its use of sugar,” says Maxim Benvenisti.
80-90 years ago, the favorite drink of Jews in Bulgaria was anisette with water. “I remember my grandmother used to like it. Today we drink everything just like our Bulgarian friends. In antiquity people didn’t know about white wine. It came much later. In the days of old, people drank thick red wine thinned with water,” says Maxim Benvenisti in conclusion.
English version: Delian Zahariev
По публикацията работи: Tanya Harizanova
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