Sukkot in Sarechal
by Dorit Bugoff  (neé Hoori Amram-Shaoul)

This week during Sukkot I was visiting a friend who had set up a Sukkah. Seeing lots of families gathered there, I was reminded of our celebrations during my childhood in Iran.

I can see the big old house where I lived with my parents, my sisters Flora and Bahereh, my four brothers and my grandmother Sara. The house had many extra rooms that my dad would rent to Jewish families that came to Teheran from small towns. They would rent them for short time, and then they would migrate to Israel.

My most beautiful memory is of how we would build the Sukkah. When it was time, my dad would bring out beautiful colorful canvas for the walls, the boys would cut branches of weeping willows for the roof, and we girls would hang pomegranates from them.

Then, from the first to the eighth night of Sukkot, the six mothers who lived in the house would come, each carrying a Persian rug for inside the Sukkah  Every night the six families would sit on their rugs around their “sofrehs” (tablecloths) on which they had placed  their own special foods and trays with their samovars and small tea glasses.  Can you imagine this big Sukkah with six different color rugs, six different size samovars, and six different color oil lamps giving off soft light?

I remember how exciting it was for us to eat in the Sukkah every night, then to go to one of the synagogues on our street. How easy it was to get there since we lived on Seven Synagogue Street right in the heart of Sarechal!