Visit to the Levy family

My grandfather, Ezra Levy was from Istanbul as was my grandmother Elisa Cohen. Ezra was one of 5 or 6 children and he had a sister Luisa who married someone name Karako. My cousin Nedim Karako is the grandson of Luisa who was the only contact that I was able to make so far. Some of the relatives have died, others have moved to Israel.

On last Saturday night, the first night of Rosh Hashanah, we went to Nedim's daughter's [Irem] home for a wonderful dinner with all of four generations of family. Nedim, Irem, Cem [his son], Nedim's wife Meral and her sister and brother in law and parents, one of whom is 91. Irem and David have two young children, Etan and Natali. There are some other Levy relatives in Istanbul that Nedim contacted, but they have yet to email or phone us. We will post several photos if we can figure that out.

Needless to say, when you have very little historical knowledge about your paternal family's background, this was wonderful. We exchanged photos, many from my mother that I can't identify in terms of the people from the 1930s.

The relatives live on the European side, partly up the Bosphorus strait near the water. We had to make a ferry across to the Asian side and meet the last bus back to Yeditepe Univ. where I am working until the end of October.