Sarine Cohen, also known as Nina, was born in 1961, in Aleppo, Syria. Her father, Edmond Cohen, was of Syrian origin, while her mother, Lidia Asis, came from Turkey. Her parents married in the mid-1940s, settling in a neighborhood in Aleppo that was home to a close-knit Jewish community whose social and economic life was intertwined with that of the Muslim community. Nina’s father was a key figure in the local Jewish community; for example, during Passover, he ensured that all the necessary items for the celebrations were brought in from Turkey. Nina recalls the neighborhood life as a mosaic of familiar faces, a place where everyone knew and supported each other.
the families who lived in Aleppo were so united
Transcript
Nina Cohen:
I remember that, despite everything I’ve told you, it was wonderful because we were united. The most beautiful thing among the Jews in Syria—especially in Aleppo, [because] I don’t know anything about life in Damascus—[is] that the families who lived in Aleppo were so united. I mean, if one family had a problem, we would run to help, we were close-knit, warm. If someone was unwell, the women would argue over who would cook for them, to help that family. For example, when it was time to make wine, the women helped each other. Let’s say it was my mother’s turn to make wine for the whole year; all her friends, ten women, would come to the kitchen with her to [clean] all the grape clusters, to crush them with their feet. I remember it very well, [they would stay] until the last step when the wine was finally bottled. The next day, it would be another friend’s turn, and my mom would go to [help] her. Do you understand what a beautiful thing that was? Among us, it was just wonderful!
The Cohen family grew rapidly with the birth of nine children. Nina fondly remembers a family life shaped by religious rituals and domestic chores. However, she also sensed that outside the home, the Jewish community was being increasingly threatened by the growing restrictions imposed by the Syrian government: private property had long been an unattainable dream, and even movement was heavily controlled. Not only was it impossible to leave the country, but even leaving Aleppo was a daunting task, so much so that Nina had never left her hometown until shortly before she left Syria for good.
After attending the Jewish elementary school , Nina earned her high school diploma and enrolled in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. Her youth was marked by a period of violence and terror when the streets of Aleppo became a battlefield due to the Syrian government’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the 1970s, the situation became unbearable, and her father realized that there was no future for his children in Syria.
With great courage, Nina’s parents did everything they could to get their children out of the country. Two of her brothers were the first to leave, crossing the desert to Turkey and then making their way to Israel. Later, thanks to changes promoted by the US Minister of Foreign Affairs, Henry Kissinger, more opportunities to leave Syria became available, especially for girls who could prove they were getting married abroad.
Determined to get married to a Jewish man who was from a family of Egyptian origin that had immigrated to Milan, Nina managed to obtain an exit permit, albeit with difficulty.
My dad said, “How can I do this? Now that I have the chance to get you out, how can I get you out? [la possibilità]
Transcript
Nina Cohen:
I remember my dad said, “[Maurizio] is your cousin, they suspect we’re pulling a trick, ask him if he can find a friend.” I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of [an] Italian guy named Davide Kamkhagi, of Lebanese origin…but he [lived] here [in Milan]. [Davide] told Maurizio, “No problem, I’ll help you get your cousin out [of Syria].” So he took care of all the paperwork, and after two years, they called me to Damascus [and said], “You must come!” I had never set foot outside my neighborhood, let alone [been] outside Aleppo. Two policemen came, [I was] with my mom and dad because we had to sign some documents in a truck, how scary! [It took us] six hours to get to the consulate to sign the papers because my exit permit had arrived. My dad saw that we had to pay a lot of money. I [was studying] at university and working as a morah [teacher] to earn money, but we had to pay a huge sum. My dad said, “How can I do this? Now that I have the chance to get you out, how can I get you out?” We never had enough money, we barely made ends meet, we didn’t have the means to…so he sent a letter to my husband’s mother, who was well-off, thank God, [asking] if she could help us. My dad [told her], “I can’t ask [her] for everything,” [so] I used all the earnings I had made in four years of teaching at the Jewish school to pay for my exit, along with my mother-in-law’s help to get me out. I paid, I remember, a fortune, and—Baruch Ha-Shem [thank God]—I left with my head held high, on the flight, and arrived here in Italy.
When Nina arrived in Milan in 1983, she was monitored by the Syrian embassy in Rome, which periodically called her to ensure that she did not continue her journey to Israel. When the time came for her wedding, Nina’s family was granted temporary permission to leave Syria, but at a cost: one of her brothers was forced to stay in Aleppo, under local authority surveillance, as a guarantee of the family’s return. Only in the early 1990s did the rest of the Cohen family finally manage to leave Syria and emigrate to the United States.
In Milan, Nina found a warm welcome from her husband’s family, who spoke the same language as her. Together with them, she began attending the synagogue on the Via Guastalla, and, step by step, she built a new life in Italy. From her marriage, three children were born, who were educated in Milan’s Jewish schools and who are currently living in Israel.
In Milan, Nina dedicated herself with energy and great enthusiasm to teaching religious subjects at the Jewish school on Via dei Gracchi in Milan, which was opened in the late 1990s on the initiative of Milan’s Lebanese Jewish community.
It is a wonderful job
Transcript
Nina Cohen:
It is a wonderful job, which I adore. It gives me great satisfaction; I put a lot into it, and it enriches me because when something is forbidden to you, when you are finally allowed to do it, you welcome it much more eagerly than when it is always permitted. Since it was always forbidden to us and I wanted to learn to write in Hebrew, I found enormous satisfaction [in it] because it was something forbidden to me. How beautiful! I read Hebrew and wrote it, and I found it something beautiful. When I taught things, I remembered everything they used to tell me. I mean, you can’t memorize things if you don’t have them written down, right? So, when you have the chance to write and can put all your notes down in writing, you memorize even more, and you enrich yourself even more.
