Sarah (Theodora)

Sarah, Theodora or Sarah-Theodora was the second wife of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria. A Jewess, the daughter of a Venetian banker, she later converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and accepted the name Theodora to become the second consort of Ivan Alexander. Sarah-Theodora played a significant role in the partition of the Bulgarian Empire between Ivan Alexander's two sons by his two wives (Ivan Sratsimir by Theodora of Wallachia and Ivan Shishman by Sarah-Theodora), which ultimately led to the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria in the very end of the 14th century.

Sarah-Theodora also gave birth to another son, Ivan Asen V, who was associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, and three daughters: Desislava, Tamara, and Keratsa Mariya, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos and gave birth to the short-lived Emperor John VII Palaiologos.