Bensignors in New York

Our grandfather Moise was born in Smyrna (Izmir), Turkey in 1892 and as previously posted, emigrated with his four brothers to Havana, Cuba around the time of World War I. Our grandmother, Bella Nahoum Bensignor, passed away in Havana of cancer in 1933. Our father Eli was five years old; his sister Gloria was eight.

Our grandfather brought his children to New York, where his wife's sisters and families had settled. Dad and Aunt Glor were raised for several years in Kew Gardens, Queens, NY by Aunt Bekita and Uncle Albert, until our Papu was able to wrap up his business endeavors and move to New York to be reunited with his children. Uncle Albert Amateau, also of Turkish-Jewish descent, had been a president of the Jewish Brotherhood of America, in New York in the 1920s. Albert and Bekita had a son Rodney, who shared the household with his cousins. Rod Amateau grew up to be a Hollywood producer and director, involved in such shows as the Burns and Allen Show, My Mother the Car and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Papu Moise had a New York-based import business centered on his relationships in Cuba. He was on the Central Council of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America and a founding member of the Sephardic Jewish Center of the Bronx, where he chaired its Talmud Torah Hebrew school program. He married family friend Sylvia Blatt in 1939 and they lived in the Bronx, a block from the Grand Concourse and in between the synagogue and Yankee Stadium, until they moved to Miami Beach in 1969.

Our Papu passed away in 1987, two days after his great grandson Eli Marc ("Eliyahu Moshe") was born to Larry and Fern. Nona Sylvia passed away in 1999. We have very fond memories of spending weekends with our grandparents, but the fondest memories revolve around holiday meals at Rosh Hashanah and the Passover Seder in their apartment in the Bronx.