Since we have so far started with our focus on the Western Sephardim, I wanted to pull us further to the East with the Ottoman Sephardim. Today, I am sharing a picture that is near and dear to my family. The story of how the picture arrived to me is as interesting as the picture itself. This photo, taken in a Sarajevo photo studio in the 1870s, is of my great-great-great grandfather Rabbi David "Davitchon" Angel, the Chief Rabbi of Larissa (known by its nickname of Madre de Yisrael) and Komotini in lower Macedonia. He was a well-traveled and learned man and in his life time, saw Thessalia pass from the hands of the Ottoman rulers to the nascent Greek Kingdom. In archival research, it was discovered that he had gone to Amsterdam in the 1850s to raise money for the Larissa community to rebuild the Synagogue which had burned down during the failed rebellion of the Greeks in the early 1850s. The synagogue, according to the story, was burned down by the wrathful and vengeful Pasha. As a result of this find, it was found in the archives of the Parnasim of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam when he had arrived and how much they donated to him for the rebuilding of the Synagogue. He later made aliyah at the age of 60 (a common tradition for Jews before the establishment of the modern Yishuv and State) from Larisa and became an emissary of the venerable and famous Beit El Yeshiva of Jerusalem for a period of 5 years. He apparently travelled around Europe and collected money for the Yeshiva. This is just an introduction to my ancestor. In the coming weeks and months, I will share more documents and information about this remarkable man and how he is truly a representative of the traditions and Eastern cosmopolitanism of the Ottoman Sephardim.