[Turkey; 1986; photograph 0406]
- Description
- Photographer's note: Turkey is a country where people have time for board games and cards. Generally among the Jews, women are the card players, and men the board players. The most popular game is TAVLA or Şeş Beş. It is the Persian name for the game that is commonly called backgammon. It is played at home, but more often than not, in a public space like a cafe or, as it is shown here, on Büyükada Island. During the years we lived in Turkey I had time to perfect my backgammon skills, and learn to call out the numbers on the dice in Persian, the country where this game is said to have originated. (Şeş beş is six and five, a desired dice throw with which to begin the game). Summers on Büyükada and the other nearby Princess Islands provided Turkey's Jews with the most idlyic of places to enjoy past times and be with family. Their were clubs to accommodate all sizes of pocket books and of course always a friendly game of Tavla, backgammon with one's friends. Büyükada now in summer is frequented by wealthy and not so wealthy Arabs escaping the heat of the desert and enjoy the pleasures of the Princess Islands that Turkey's Jews have long enjoyed. So, Arabic has now replaced the Ladino, French and Greek that used to be commonly heard.
- Creator
- Salzmann, Laurence (photographer)
- Form
- photographs
- Date
- 1986
- Geographic Subject
- Turkey -- Büyükada
- Collection
- Laurence and Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann Collection
- Extent
- 1 photograph
- Related works
- Finding aid https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/UPENN_RBML_PUSP.MS.COLL.1424
- Physical Location
- Ms. Coll. 1424
- Provenance
- Gift of Laurence and Ayșe Salzmann, 2018.
- Rights
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
- Rights Note
- © Laurence Salzmann.
- Resource Type
- Still Image
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