Ron Jacobsohn Investigates the Complex Jewish-Turkish Heritage

The over 500-years of history of the Jews in Turkey is brought to live at Bar Ilan University’s conference – The Jews of turkey: identity and Heritage.
As the pages if history were visited at the conference a clear message arose from all speakers: the current strain in the relationship between the Turks and the Jews should be taken with a grain of salt as a new page of good relations between the two is just around the corner.

Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
The over 500-years of history of the Jews in Turkey is brought to live at Bar Ilan University’s conference – The Jews of Turkey: Identity and Heritage

The perseverance of the Jewish community in Turkey over hundreds of years is definitely something worth taking a look at, says Dr. Efrat Aviv of the BESA Institute at Bar Ilan University, who helped organize this conference.

Dr. Efrat Aviv, Organizer of the Conference:
The Jewish community in Turkey and even in the Ottoman empire was a very successful one, they had their Golden Age and it’s true, it happens, it still happens but there’s a problem ever since the state of Israel was established, I mean ever since the relations between the government or their attitude towards the Jewish community is much controlled or dictated by the relations between the Israeli state and the Turkish state. The Jews of Turkey come or maybe fall in between both governments and we can see that very clearly in what is going on these days. It’s one of the largest Jewish communities under Muslim rule and it’s a vivid community that flourishes and still has roots, strong roots in Turkey, and how all this sheds a light towards what happened in the past; how they wereused to be treated in Ottoman era and how they are treated these days and I think it’s really an interesting, intriguing topic for the Israeli society as well.

MK Shimon Ohayon, of the Ha’Likud-Beytinu party, explains why the Jewish community in Turkey is so crucial to the Jewish History as a whole.

MK Shimon Ohayon, Chairman of Dahan Center, Bar-Ilan University:
We had in this area over three hundred thousand Jewish people, now we haveonly 27 thousand so of course if you compare this situation totally has been changed and we are aware also of this situation because of the political situation. We do worry about what’s going and we do believe and we hope that our historywould have some kind of influence, the contribution, the good relationship between Israel, the Jewish people and the Turkish people, and the hospitality of the Ottoman empire maybe will come back and we’ll be able to see a good relationship between Israel and Turkey.

Abdel-Raouf Arnaout who is the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the Turkish Anadolu News Agency explains that although the relationship between Turkey and Israel is still very strained on government level it didn’t really hurt the business relationship between the two countries. Soundbite – Abdel-Raouf Arnaout, Jerusalem Bureau Chief, The Anadolu AgencyIsraeli relations and you know, after the establishment of Israel, Turkey was the first Muslim country who recognized Israel and this was another importantthing but then after, you know, after the flotilla crisis you know, when ninepeople has been killed by the forces of the Israelis, for the Turkey it was dramatic, you know, the perception Israel as the change it immensely, not Anti-Semitic but on the other rate the people are really upset because the Turkey and Israeli relations during the time after the flotilla 30% rate of the commercial volume increased and almost 4 billion dollars, in comparison these kind of trade
Turkey doesn’t even have with neighboring Syria or Iraq. So you can imagine that this kind of good commercial relations is very important so now the building of the reconciliation relations is very crucial and we are waiting for Israel withthat stuff.

Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
As the pages if history were visited at the conference a clear message arose from all speakers: the current strain in the relationship between the Turks and the Jews should be taken with a grain of salt as a new page of good relations between the two is just around the corner.
For JN1 I am Ron Jacobsohn at Bar Ilan University.

 

About Ron Jacobsohn

World renowned, award winning, correspondent, Ron Jacobsohn, brings from his very entertaining world to Ron's World.

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