Elia Carmona

Elia Carmona was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1869, to a privileged Sephardic Ottoman Jewish family. Despite the family's relatively prominent status, his parents suffered financial hardships throughout his childhood. In his youth, he received a traditional Jewish education and then studied briefly at an Alliance Israélite Universelle school until his parents had to remove him from school due to their financial difficulties. Over the following years, he worked in various professions, including working as a French tutor for wealthy families and peddling cigarettes and matches. In 1893, he became engaged to a woman named Rachel, the daughter of his neighbors. According to his memoir, however, if his parents had not persuaded him to continue the engagement, he would have chosen to marry another young woman named Rosa, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. == References ==