The Sasson family’s journey from Syria to sanctuary

As told to Malkie Schulman by Shifra Mizrahi

Iwas born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1948, but as I was just five years old when we left, my memories of my hometown are vague. I do remember a tight-knit community, pretty, tree-lined streets;,and being surrounded by our extended family, whose homes I was in and out of all the time.

Growing up, I was often told stories about my family yichus. My family name was Sasson, after our city of origin, Shushan, in Persia. In 1784, my ancestors emigrated from Persia to Syria, where, over the years, they became well-known jewelers in Aleppo.

My grandfather (my father’s father), Salim (Shlomo) Sasson, features prominently on our family tree, which goes back over 200 years and hangs proudly in my dining room. My grandfather died a month before I was born, but even after we moved to Eretz Yisrael, I would meet people who remembered and spoke highly of him. He was famous for his exceptional generosity. One old family friend told me that my grandfather took exceptional care of the widows and orphans in the city, providing whatever they needed to live, including sponsoring their bar mitzvahs.

Another story told about him was that he’d lend money to local Arab farmers who often didn’t pay him back in cash. Instead, as payment, he’d travel to their farms to make cheese and butter from their cows’ milk to bring back to his family. The thing is that by the time he’d get back home, he’d often have given most of the cheese and butter away to rabbis and poor people. He was so anxious to help others less fortunate that my grandmother would sometimes say, “Please, Salim, don’t forget to leave something for your own children!” He would just look at her, smile gently, and not say anything.

I remember my grandmother telling me, “Your grandfather was a tzaddik. He never allowed us to go to sleep until we had settled even the smallest disagreement.”

My grandmother’s sister (also on my father’s side) lived in Damascus and was married to a famous rabbi and mekubal, Chacham Avraham Fatal ztz”l. After my great-aunt died in 1936, Chacham Fatal made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael with his five children, my father’s first cousins. One of his daughters, Margalit, married Chacham Ovadiah Yosef ztz”l.

Chacham Fatal was a huge tzaddik. I remember him giving us brachot every time we visited. He also made me a kamaya (a Kabbalstic amulet for shemirah) that I carried around in my wallet for many years.

My father learned with his uncle every night after work for years once we moved to Eretz Yisrael. And up until his death, my family stayed close with our cousin, Chacham Ovadiah Yosef. In fact, a year after my father passed away, we wrote a sefer Torah in his memory, and Chacham Ovadiah wrote the last words in it. We also gave him the kibbud of announcing my son’s name at his brit.

My mother’s side were also meyuchas — her aunt was married to the chief rabbi of Lebanon, Chacham Shrem, a well-known tzaddik.