Are Turkey’s Jews in Trouble?
Rising anti-Semitism and dwindling numbers are raising questions about the future of the Jewish community in Turkey.
By: Hana Levi JulianPublished: July 20th, 2014
via The Jewish Press » » Are Turkey’s Jews in Trouble?.
Are the Jews of Turkey – Israel’s former ally in the region — in danger?
On Friday, the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed alarm at the increasingly hostile environment towards Israel in Turkey that has extended itself towards that country’s Jews.
The ADL called on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reject the targeting of Turkish Jews over Israel’s counter terrorist Operation Protective Edge — launched to silence the rocket fire aimed by Hamas at Israeli civilians – and to publicly assert that the Jewish community has the full support and protection of the state.
Instead, Erdogan issued an additional condemnation of Israel the next day, telling supporters in a speech at the Black Sea resort city of Ordu, “[Israelis] have no conscience, no honor, no pride. Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.” According to the Reuters news service, the Turkish leader repeatedly likened Israel to the Nazi murderers over the Jewish State’s current counter terrorist Operation Protective Edge against the Hamas rulers of Gaza.
But Erdogan was apparently persuaded by senior members of his Islamic AKP party to lower the heat against the Jews in his own country, if only a trifle. “I don’t approve of any [bad} attitude towards our Jewish citizens in Turkey despite all this. Why? They are the citizens of this country,” he said.
Approximately 17,000 Jews remain in the country. But the rising anti-Semitism combined with increasing difficulty for young Jews in finding a spouse is prompting families to emigrate at a much faster rate than they have in past years. Istanbul’s Sephardic synagogue, the magnificent Neve Shalom, has been attacked by Palestinian Arab terrorists three times since 1986 — most recently in 2003.
As recently as June 2013, in order to enter the building, a visitor had find the small nonedescript entrance alley off to the side, then surrender one’s passport, walk through a metal detector and undergo a search carried out by grim Turkish security personnel. Some visitors were not allowed in anyway, depending upon the whim of the security guards.
The Sephardic Jewish Center was also well hidden, away on a side street in the center of Istanbul in a posh neighborhood filled with upscale restaurants. One would not know it was there, unless you knew what to look for. Even then, the entrance is hidden.
To find it, one enters a building and is greeting immediately by a friendly security man at the door who asks your business. An upscale shop is located on the ground floor, across the from desk.
If you know what to ask, and where you are going, you are passed through to the location of a small elevator, well protected with metal grating and heavy steel bars and locks. Several other security measures later, all with heavy reinforcements, and eventually one emerges into the offices of the Jewish news weekly, the Salom Gazette, housed in the Sephardic Jewish Center, the nerve center of Turkish Jewry. The Istanbul-based Center, which is struggling for resources — and survival — at this point, produces the only Ladino newspaper in the world. It is probably the only spot in the country where Jews can find materials in Hebrew, Ladino, and other languages about Israel and Judaism.
On Friday Israel’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile ordered the withdrawal of all non-essential personnel from the country due to the rising danger they faced. A day later, the Israeli government issued a travel warning, telling citizens to avoid “non-essential visits” to Turkey, and telling those who had to be there to be “especially vigilant” and stay away from anti-Israel demonstrations.
Carefully orchestrated, vicious pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the capital city of Ankara flashed into anti-Israel riots Thursday night, continuing into Friday and then again on Saturday. Rioters hurled rocks and yelled anti-Semitic and anti-Israel epithets outside Israeli diplomatic offices. They attacked the residence of the Israeli ambassador, smashing the windows and causing other damage. Turkish police stood by and did nothing. In Istanbul, a similar mob attacked the Israeli Consulate. But in that city — once known as Constantinople — police repelled the rioters with tear gas and water cannons.
Erdogan himself fanned the flames – having not-so-subtly incited them himself over the past several years and certainly last week.
On Wednesday, the pro-government, Erdogan-linked daily Yeni Akit newspaper published an open letter written by Faruk Kose to the Turkish chief rabbi, demanding an apology from Turkish Jewry for Israel’s actions in Gaza. “ You came here after being banished from Spain. You have lived comfortably among us for 500 years and gotten rich at our expense. Is this your gratitude – killing Muslims? Erdogan, demand that the community leader apologize!”
An editorial in the same newspaper highlighted the victims in Gaza, according to the ADL, and suggested that Turkey’s Jews condemn Israel’s actions. “While all this is happening, the journal of the Jewish community in Turkey, ‘Salom,’ is referring to the murder of children in Gaza as ‘taking care of terrorists,’ “ the paper wrote. The Jewish weekly, the ‘Salom Gazete’ has spent years, however, trying to pick its way between the raindrops to maintain positive ties with its neighbors, as a rising tide of anti-Semitism continues to grow with the increasing popularity of the Islamist AKP government.
In the past several years, Turkey has also strengthened and warmed its ties with Iran — which has declared its intent to “wipe the Zionist state from the world map.” Moreover, Turkey has begun to play host to an array of terrorist leaders who are basing satellite offices in the up-and-coming radical Islamist nation that once prided itself on its balanced, moderate stance.
“Since [Israel’s re-creation in] 1948 we have been witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every day and every month . . . But above all we are witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every Ramadan,” Erdogan ranted in a speech on Thursday.”
It was the same day that Hamas terrorists broke an Egyptian-brokered humanitarian cease fire aimed at allowing Gaza residents time to move around freely and safely to repair their homes and infrastructure, and obtain food and other necessities. Hamas took advance of Israel refusing to return fire in order to launch mortar shells at Jewish communities along the Gaza border. The attacks, which came about two hours into the five-hour cease fire, were dishonorable and proved again that the word of an Islamist terrorist could not be trusted.
One minute before the cease fire was to officially end, Hamas launched a massive barrage of rocket and missile fire that was aimed at a wide array of targets across the central and southern regions of the country.
That action, plus the fact that 13 operatives had emerged from a tunnel nearly in the midst of a kibbutz in an attempted terror attack earlier in the day — and were stopped only because an IDF patrol jeep was deployed nearby – made it clear that a ground operation was necessary. By nightfall, the decision was made and Israel launched the ground incursion into Gaza – which further enraged the Turkish leader.
Erdogan has never hesitated to publicly express his hatred of Israel’s decisions on how to handle its internal national security problems with Islamist terrorism from Gaza, Judea and Samaria. It has never occurred to the Turkish prime minister that the actions of the PKK and other terrorists in his own country precisely mirror those of Hamas and others in Israel.
No Turkish leader would ever have tolerated the antics of Hamas on Anatolian soil. But that has never stopped Erdogan’s endless claims that Israel is the aggressor in any conflict with Hamas, founded by the Muslim Brotherhood with which Islamist Erdogan has a close bond.
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WarSclerotic 
July 20, 2014 at 1:56 PM
Waiting to long can have consequences, as we know !