Karel Valansi'nin kaleminden...

By Karel Valansi in Routledge Handbook of Turkey's Diasporas editors: Ayca Arkilic, Banu Senay ABSTRACT  Drawing immigration was one of the main objectives of the newborn State of Israel, and this policy generated a strong pull factor for Jews worldwide. However, the mass emigration from Turkey was a surprise even to Israeli authorities who were not expecting such large numbers from a country where Jews were not expelled from or faced an existential threat. Nearly 40 per cent of Turkey’s Jewish community emigrated to Israel during 1948–1951. This mass migration was Turkey’s second-biggest emigration wave following labour emigration to Europe from the 1960s onwards. Despite its significance, Turkish Jewry is an understudied topic, especially in Turkish migration and diaspora studies. This chapter scrutinises the trajectory and current state of the Turkish Jewish diaspora in Israel. It presents an overview of the subject matter, including the historical background of Turkish Jews, ...

The new Community Foundations Election Regulation, which addresses the crucial demand of Turkey’s minorities, received a mixed welcome, but communities largely hailed the news. The regulation is in response to a key matter for the communities’ future as foundations primarily oversee everyday affairs, from running places of worship to hospitals serving the communities. The old regulation allowing the Community Foundations to elect their own board of directors was suspended in 2013. For the last nine years, a new regulation has been tried to put into action. Finally, it was issued by the government in June. “We advise our community to focus on the positive aspects of the regulation. Since the regulation is new, it will start showing results in time. We believe that constructive dialogues between Armenian and other minority communities and with the General Directorate of Foundations (VGM) are essential and valuable at this stage,” said Sahak II, the Armenian patriarch of Turkey. “In this ...

Turkey’s Jewish minority takes the heat amid Israeli-Palestinian violence  By  Amberin Zaman , Al Monitor, 17 May 2021 A frenzy of anti-Israeli coverage in Turkish media has accompanied anti-Semitic attacks on the country's small Jewish community. Turkey’s tiny Jewish community is once again in the crosshairs of the ongoing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, with its community newspaper the target of a fresh wave of anti-Semitic attacks. Individuals who identified themselves as disciples of Necip Fazıl Kisakurek, a Turkish nationalist poet and anti-Semite revered by Turkey’s Islamist President  Recep Tayyip Erdogan , hacked the website of  Salom , the sole newspaper serving  Turkey’s dwindling Jewish minority . They posted, “Our actions will continue until Palestine is free and independent.” They also posted a verse from one of Kisakurek’s poems evoking Palestinians responding to Israeli missiles with stones. The perpetrators have yet to be caught. Turk...

We knocked on Ankara Jewish Community Leader Can Özgön’s door to get to know Ankara Jews better, to learn about their problems, to talk about the history of the Jewish neighborhood and where the community stands today. We discussed the heavy burden they bear as a community consisting of only 35 members to preserve their history and keep their synagogue alive. The history of Ankara Jews dates back to Roman Empire. Later, Sephardic Jews joined the Jews of that era who were known as Romaniotes. Even though Ankara Jewish community was never a big community in terms of population at any period, it was definitely an important part of the city. We got together with Can Özgön, the leader of Ankara Jewish Community, to get a sense of the life of Ankara Jews, their problems and their longings.  Özgön has been actively working for Ankara Jewish Community since 1994.  He’s been the leader of the community since 2004. Together with his deputy Musa Yolak, they identify problems and try to...

I've been asked a lot lately how we Jews cope in Turkey with the recent surge in terrorism. The answer isn't clear cut. As a Turkish Jew, a woman, and a journalist covering the Middle East, I am often asked about anti-Semitism, freedom of the press and the difficulties facing women in Turkey. Recently, a new question has been added to the list: “How do you cope with the terror attacks?” The recent surge in terrorism has been shocking by all means. Especially when foreign missions – like Israel – issue travel warnings about imminent attacks, and when reports surface that the Islamic State seeks to target Israelis and Jews. Remembering the recent attacks on Jews in Europe – the kosher market in Paris, the Jewish museum in Belgium, the Grand Synagogue in Denmark and the Jewish school in Toulouse – makes us even more wary. And when three Israelis were killed along with one Iranian in Istanbul last month, the terror felt ever closer to home.

Our courage to hold a public Hanukkah ceremony for the first time in history this week stemmed not from a transformation in Turkish society, but from a shift within our community. This past year has been exceptional for Turkish Jewry. On January 27, Holocaust victims were commemorated in an official service in the heart of Turkey, Ankara. Although the speaker of parliament chose to use this forum as an opportunity to paint the Palestinian issue as the center of all the Middle East's problems, we were nonetheless happy to be part of an official commemoration. Then, on February 24, Struma victims were commemorated for the first time at an official ceremony. After 73 years, senior officials joined Turkey's Jewish community at a ceremony commemorating 768 Jewish refugees who perished in 1942 as the vessel was isolated and doomed to its fate in the Black Sea. The inauguration of the Edirne Great Synagogue on March 26 was an historic day for us, too. For the first time in my l...

The stunning victory of the conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey does not pose a threat to Turkish Jewry, Turkish-Jewish columnist and blogger Karel Valansi told  The Algemeiner  on Thursday. Valansi, the political columnist for the Turkish-Jewish weekly,  Şalom , said the “public voted for security and against the instability that is perceived with governments formed by coalition.”

The Spanish government, belatedly coming to grips with the historic mistake of forcing the Jews out of the country, is now trying to apologize through granting them citizenship The Spanish government adopted a long-anticipated bill to grant citizenship to Sephardic Jews, but applicants face serious challenges For quite some time, people had been talking about the Spanish government's plans to grant citizenship to Sephardic Jews, a religious minority forced out of the Iberian Peninsula several centuries ago. Considering that the Jewish community faced persecution for refusing to become Christians, it would be more accurate to use the term "readmission."

Mr. Ronald Eissens is the General Director and Co-Founder of the Dutch NGO Magenta Foundation, which focuses on international human rights and anti-racism. He also founded The ‘International Network Against Cyber Hate’ which fights discrimination and other forms of cyber hate. We discussed how to fight hate speech, online antisemitism and we talked about the consequences of the rise of antisemitism in Europe as well as the situation of Turkish Jews The Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism ended recently. Do you consider it successful? Is there an action plan? In my view it was more successful than the previous ones, since it was very much geared towards action. For now there is a summary of recommendations. Some of these are quite important like these three: Adopting a formal, legal definition of anti-Semitism. This definition will include attacks against the legitimacy of the State of Israel and the denial of the Holocaust. Strengthening legislation against anti-Semit...

In the past, when  Adio Kerida (Goodbye my Beloved)  was sung at the end of a Jewish ceremony in Turkey, some had tears in their eyes and some had their hands on their hearts. However, this time it was sung, the 500-year old requiem that symbolizes the yearning of Sephardic Jews had a whole different meaning. All the Jews of this land and especially the Thrace Jews who were expelled from their homes in 1934, sang this song as “one” – with pure joy. And this time the tears that ran down their cheeks were tears of joy instead of tears of sadness. March 26, 2015, was a historical day for Edirne and the Turkish Jews. For the first time in my life, I was attending an opening ceremony of a synagogue. And I was sure it was a first for most of us as well. Almost a thousand people came to the big opening. The plans had been made weeks ago. The buses were organized. The lunch boxes to be given to guests were prepared in accordance with Kashrut laws. A scarf and a kippah were given...

At a breaking point in Turkey: Should Jews stay or should we go?   by   Simone Wilson The gold and gray city of Istanbul spent Valentine’s Day bracing for snow. Under angry clouds, Turkish couples huddled around tabletops in the cafe quarter of Ortakoy, a historically posh neighborhood along the Bosphorus Strait. Jewelry-makers had set up stands along the alleyways to sell gleaming valentine trinkets. Crowning the scene — visible from nearly every spot in the neighborhood — were the ornate minarets of the Ortakoy Mosque, one of the city’s proudest monuments. When the mosque’s loudspeakers blasted a Saturday morning call to prayer throughout Ortakoy, all cafe chatter paused for a moment; one got the feeling its holy vibrations could split ice. If any of Ortakoy’s lovers noticed the line of well-dressed men and women who, meanwhile, were ducking through a miniature green door in a stone wall on the quarter’s edge — just across from the Shakespeare Cafe and Bar — they didn’t...

I was excited; this is the best word to describe my feelings that day. Every detail of the ceremony had been worked on for weeks. We were going to Ankara! And to commemorate the Holocaust nonetheless, this was huge! The victims of the Holocaust were officially going to be commemorated in my country, as it will be in many other countries. And in Ankara, at the heart of Turkey!