The Jeff Malka Sephardic Collection

The 1919 Directory of the Kingdom of Bulgaria / Index of Bulgarian Jews

The 1919 Directory of Bulgaria was found listed (among others) on the following website: http://www.genealogyindexer.org/directories

In today language usage it would be called "yellow pages". As such, it is alphabetically organized by locality names and for each one arranged according to the professions and occupations. this directory was published in German in Leipzig, Germany and not in Bulgaria. That is why one finds slightly different spellings of a known name. for example: maschijach for mashiah; aladschem for aladjem, etc. the Bulgarian ending 'ov' is here spelled ''off' or 'ow'.

In 1920 the Jewish population of Bulgaria counted 16,000 souls of which only 1,331 were Jews, living in 22 localities, are listed in this 1919 directory. But one has to take into account that professions such as teachers, employees of all kinds, peddlers, workers etc. are not listed in this business almanac.

The following table shows a rough division of the professions and occupations as found here.

-Academic professions include attorneys, architects, dentists, pharmacists, physicians etc.
-Agriculture includes beekeeping, farm owners, rice breeding and silkworms breeding.
-Building is only composed of entrepreneurs.
-Manual professions cover: bakers, milliners, saddlers, shoemaker, tailors, etc.
-Industry and manufacture deal with chemical products, iron, food, clothing, paper, furniture, etc.
-Finances cover banking, money changers, etc.
-Trade includes all the products and goods.

It often happens that one finds the name of the same person under different occupations. sometimes these were brothers who worked together, each one with his specialty but it is very possible that to make a living, a man needed to sell various products.
  
The present index includes the surnames and given names, the occupations (translated from german), the scanned image page, the original directory page, and the address when given. these were available for a great part of Jews living in Sofia but rarely for the province cities.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the tremendous contributions and lifelong dedication of Mathilde Tagger, z"l who made this index available. For many years, and right until her untimely death, Mathilde Tagger was a very close friend and collaborator with Jeff Malka. Together they worked to promote Sephardic genealogy research and educate the public about its enormous potential.

In addition, we express our grateful appreciation to Dr. Jeff Malka for his monumental ongoing effort to collect and make accessible Sephardic genealogical information, and for his generosity in contributing his extraordinarily valuable collection to JewishGen.

Search the Database

The Dictionary of Bulgarian Jewish Surnames can be searched by via the JewishGen Bulgaria Database or the JewishGen Sephardic Collection