Caught in between :Turkish jews

[anafor2004]

Caught in between: Turkish Jews

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

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Today's Holy Land


YUSUF KANLI and BURAK BEKDIL
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TEL AVIV - Turkish Daily News


There is a large society of people in Israel who dance to Turkish music, enjoy the taste of Turkish food and communicate between themselves in Turkish as much as they do in Hebrew. They are members of the Turkish Israeli community, the people who migrated to Israel from Turkey and who define themselves as Turkish Jews.
They do not want to talk politics, at least until they have established trust that their names will not be revealed. “We don't want to be troublemakers. On the contrary, we want to be living bridges between our two homelands; Turkey and Israel. We are Israelis as much as we are Turks,” one senior member of the community said. Now in his early 80s, he spent almost half his life in Turkey and stressed that at times of tension in bilateral relations between the two countries the community feels distressed but remains confident that “whatever misunderstanding might lead to such an unfortunate [lessening of] ties will soon be eradicated and mutual confidence will be re-established between our two countries which, because of the political geography of the region, the values they share and the strong bonds of friendship derived from a rich common past, are destined to be natural allies.”
Still, they complain of hypocrisy on the part of the Turkish media and by some leading politicians of the country in their approach towards the “human suffering” of the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict.
“We also deplore the inhumane behavior of some security personnel in their treatment of the Palestinians. We also deplore some government policies. We too complained, like many other people in Israel, about the overuse of force in security operations and in the latest operation on the Hezbollah presence in southern Lebanon. However, we would have expected Turkish leaders and media to understand that the Israelis suffer trauma and that we are suffering as well,” said a leading member of the community who still has strong business relations with Turkey and spends most of his time shuttling between Istanbul and Tel Aviv.
“How you refer to suffering is important. If you describe the operation on Lebanon as ‘heinous' or as ‘genocidal' and splash photographs of suffering people on the front pages with subtitles condemning Israeli 'brutality' you are also required to use identical language for suicide attacks on busses, schools and restaurants that kill so many innocent civilians and for the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Haifa and other northern settlements imperiling civilian life, the economy -- everything. We, unfortunately, are unable to see such a considerate approach from present Turkish leadership and media,” he added.
In Turkey, he said, people criticize members of the Turkish Jewish community for the mistakes of the Israeli government, and in Israel they are often faced with complaints of “Look at what your countrymen have said or written again.”
He went on: “In a way, we are Israelis in Turkey and Turks in Israel… It's strange, but that's how we are perceived.”
The complaints of the Turkish Jewish community seemed numerous, but what appeared to be most dominant was their reaction to Turkey's contacts with the exiled leadership of the Hamas organization and the reluctance of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) administration to condemn “Islamist terrorism.”
“No one is saying that Islam is a terrorist religion. But there are terrorist elements using Islam and the values and norms of the religion as a pretext for their criminal and inhumane acts. Are there not extremist Jewish groups using religion as a pretext as well, or Christian? Religions preach peace, cohesion and tolerance, but fundamentalists are unleashing heinous acts in the name of religion. We all must stand up against such groups and condemn them. That's what we expect from the Turkish leadership too,” he said. Confident that Turkey can and should play a more active role in the Middle East, another senior member of the Turkish Jewish community stressed that, not only as a former ruler of the region but also as one of the strongest regional powers that had managed to develop democracy in a predominantly Muslim society, irrespective of whether Turkish leaders like it, Turkey has been perceived as a “role model” for the troubled area.

[turan8]

The ironic thing is the current islamic-oriented AKP government is based from Kayseri, and everyone in Turkey calls people from Kayseri, "smart...like jews" lol...

[Ergnkon]

The sooner this AKP gov't goes the better for Turkey. They've screwed up Turkey's relations with its only ally in the ME, and made friends with countries like Syria and Iran which supported the Kurdish terror against Turkey for two decades.

Hopefully all will change soon.

[fantomas]

I hooked up with a turkish jewish chick when i was in israel 2 years ago. She was cool and everything, but just wouldnt shut up about Istanbul. She kept talking about it like it was the lost city of atlantis. anyway, thats my contribution.

[LRPV]

Well? At least tell us the juicy details...:)

[Ordie]

I think it was an Ottoman Sultan that once said "Why do they call Ferdinand a wise king? when he makes his land poor and ours rich".

Turkey was a sanctuary for European Jews fleeing pogroms and persecution. To this day there are Ladino (Spanish) speaking communities in Turkey.

[Ordie]

I hooked up with a turkish jewish chick when i was in israel 2 years ago. She was cool and everything, but just wouldnt shut up about Istanbul. She kept talking about it like it was the lost city of atlantis. anyway, thats my contribution.

Did she end up singing "Istanbul not Constantinople"

[Ergnkon]

I think it was an Ottoman Sultan that once said "Why do they call Ferdinand a wise king? when he makes his land poor and ours rich".

Turkey was a sanctuary for European Jews fleeing pogroms and persecution. To this day there are Ladino (Spanish) speaking communities in Turkey.


Here is the story from the Jewish site.

A BLESSING

While Columbus was off discovering America, what was happening to the Jews newly thrown out of Spain?

Most made their way across the border to Portugal, but their stay there was short-lived. Five years later, Portugal offered them the same choice as Spain: "convert, leave or die."

Thousands went to Turkey, which historically has been very nice to the Jews. Opening his doors to them, the Sultan of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Bayezid II, declared: "They tell me that Ferdinand of Spain is a wise man but he is a fool. For he takes his treasure and sends it all to me."

How did the movement of the Jews affect these countries? Spain, after some good years, went into a tremendous decline. Turkey, on the other hand, prospered. The Ottoman Empire became one of the greatest powers in the world. The next two sultans, Selim I and Suleiman I, expanded the empire as far as Vienna, Austria.

(Incidentally, it was Suleiman -- known as "Suleiman the Magnificent" -- who re-built the walls of Jerusalem - the same walls that stand today and define the Old City.)

http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_48_-_The_Inquisition.asp