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The Slow Disappearance of Turkey's Jewish Community
Author(s): Bali, Rifat
Date: 2011
Topics: Aliyah, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Community Relations, Diaspora, Immigration, International Relations, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Migration, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Future
Abstract: Turkey's Jewish community is one of the few remaining Diaspora Jewish communities in a country with a Muslim majority. Despite its apparent dynamism, its long-term viability is doubtful. The community does not have any influence or play any role worth mentioning in Turkey's cultural, political, or intellectual life. Furthermore, in recent years the entire community has become the target of much resentment and hostile rhetoric from the country's Islamist and ultranationalist sectors. For the situation to change, Turkish society would have to veer away from the current insular nationalist and Islamist atmosphere and move in a more liberal, democratic, multicultural direction. Turkey could then both come to grips with the darker aspects of its past and work for a different and better future. At present, the indications that such a transition might occur are mixed at best.