Tania Chamma-Srour was born in Beirut in 1950, to a family with deep Lebanese roots. After studying in Paris, her father, Albert Chamma-Srour, returned to his hometown and worked as an agronomic engineer at the Régie des Tabacs, the Lebanese tobacco production agency. Albert’s workday continued in the afternoon at the dry-cleaning shop he ran with his brother on the Rue de Normandie, “in the artists’ quarter,” as Tania recalls. Her mother, Rosette Braha, had wished to continue her studies, but the family’s financial difficulties had forced her to give up her dreams.
Tania grew up in an environment where French culture was dominant, but Arabic was also frequently spoken. She was surrounded by the affection of her three brothers and her two sisters. The family lived in Wadi Abu-Jamil, the old Jewish quarter of Beirut, a place where the streets do not even have names. Although her family lacked for nothing, Tania perceived the poverty that permeated the neighborhood, contrasted only by the liveliness of the meeting places that brought it to life.
era una bella comunità, molto unita
Transcript
Tania C. S. Kamkaji:
It’s funny because, truly, when we received mail, there was no need to give an address. For example, my father’s name was Albert Chamma-Srour. They would put on the postcard “Monsieur Albert Chamma-Srour—Rue Wadi Abu-Jamil,” and it would arrive. There was no number or anything. The entire neighborhood was called “Rue Wadi Abu-Jamil.” There was the synagogue, everything was in that quarter, the school. I lived right in front of the school, not even five minutes away on foot.
Interviewer
Do you have an idea of how many there were? How many Jews lived in that…
Tania C. S. Kamkaji
Not many, but it was a nice community, very close-knit. There was even a club where every Saturday evening, for instance, the young people [would meet], so there was no need to look elsewhere. All the young people were friends with each other, they would meet there. [The club] was behind the synagogue, Maghen Abraham, that’s what the synagogue there was called. Right behind it, there was a small place, but all the young Jews would meet there. And there was also a place for…a sports club, just for the young people, and I also taught there.
Interviewer
What was it called? Was it the Maccabi, or…?
Tania C. S. Kamkaji
The Maccabi, that’s it, the Maccabi. There was the synagogue, so you would enter the synagogue, then there was a little passage, right to the left of the synagogue, you’d go ahead, and there was the sports club. Then you’d go up the stairs where every Saturday evening, all the young people would meet, with music, dancing, talking.
As a child, Tania attended the Jewish school run by the Alliance Israélite Universelle until third grade. She then went to a Catholic school, where she continued her education in French. Tania fulfilled her mother’s dream of pursuing higher education when she moved to Paris to study, followed by her brothers. Her mother, who valued education deeply, filled the house with French books and musical instruments.
we had a piano, so piano lessons, drums, saxophone, guitar
Transcript
Tania C. S. Kamkaji:
So, in our house, besides studies, [we had] a house full of musical instruments. So, we had a piano, so piano lessons, drums, saxophone, guitar. Whoever passed by below could always hear music coming from our house in the afternoon. My mother cared deeply; she wanted music, she wanted us to study. My father cared too, but she was the one who kept the family together.
Music played a central role in the family’s life. The house echoed with the voices of French singers such as Adamo and Jacques Brel, as well as Italian artists such as Bobby Solo and Fred Bongusto. Arabic music also featured, with evenings dedicated to listening to live broadcasts of the great Lebanese singers of the 1960s and 1970s such as Fairouz and Sabah. Like many Jewish families in Beirut, the Chamma-Srour family spent the summer months in the mountains, returning to the city at the start of the school year.
We used to go to the mountains from June to September
Transcript
Tania C. S. Kamkaji:
We used to go to the mountains from June to September, until school reopened. [When] we went to the mountains, we would take all the furniture. The houses you rented weren’t furnished. So, a truck would come the day before [the departure]: beds were taken, the fridge was taken…even the piano. Everything was taken, and the house in Beirut remained empty. We’d go there and spend the whole summer
In the summer of 1971, Tania traveled to Milan to visit her sister Emma, and it was there that she met her future husband, Isaac Kamkaji, who was also of Lebanese origin. This meeting marked a decisive change in Tania’s life, and she decided to leave Lebanon for good to marry Isaac in October that same year. From that moment on, Tania returned to Beirut only once a year to celebrate Passover with her family. During one of these trips, with her two young children, the civil war broke out. Thanks to her father’s help, Tania managed to return to Italy safely. Shortly afterward, her father joined her for the Jewish holidays in September, but tragically lost his life in a plane crash on his way back to Lebanon. As the war intensified, the rest of the Chamma-Srour family left Beirut permanently in December 1975.
