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World Jewish News
Head of the Turkish Jewish community: "We do not ask for leniency and tolerance, we want to be rightful citizens of Turkey&
15.03.2009
The Turkish Jews have always been and will always be one of the most effective factors in the formation and development of Turkey, given the diversified internal dynamics of country. This was an opinion voiced in an exclusive interview to 1news.az by the Head of the Jewish community of Turkey Silvio Ovadia.
According to Ovadia, the Jews of Turkey ask for equal democratic rights, rather than tolerance towards themselves. "Everybody can criticize the Israeli policy, and we respect this right. However, any anti-Israeli statement could easily turn into condemnation of the Jews. Whenever one starts a war in the Middle East, the rate of anti-Semitism in the world grows. One reason is the inability to distinguish between an Israeli and a Jew who is a citizen of another country. This is our problem in Turkey, people see us as the citizens of Israel," said Ovadia.
It should be mentioned that the history of Turkish Jews numbers 2400 years. Initially, in the Jews who lived in Asia Minor called themselves Romaniots, but were later assimilated by the large wave of Sephardi. In the Middle Ages, the Ashkenazi also began to migrate to Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the XV century, Sultan Bayazid II favorably met the Sephardi refugees, who had fled from Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. Since then, the Jews in Turkey have enjoyed rather favorable conditions. Science and art flourished, and the XV-XVI centuries were an era of flourishing Jewish literature. In 1887, there were five Jews among the members of Parliament of the Ottoman Empire, and by the beginning of XX century the Jewish community had 500 000 people.
At present, over 30 thousand Jews live in Turkey; there are approximately 40 synagogues, half of them located in Istanbul - a busy town on the shores of the Bosphorus. In addition, 19 Jewish Charities and five Jewish schools are officially registered in the country.
According to Ovadia, the Jewish citizens of Turkey are not guests and not foreigners. "We want to be the rightful citizens of Turkey. I am not asking for tolerance and indulgence, but if this is my country, why am I to settle for mere tolerance?" rhetorically asks the Head of the Jewish community of Turkey.
Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923 provided for the protection of national minorities in Turkey. Under the constitution, Turkey's national minorities are Armenians, Jews and Greeks who are registered as religious communities.
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