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Turkish Jews in an Unwelcoming Public Space
Author(s): Kaymak, Özgür
Editor(s): Öktem, Kerem; Yosmaoğlu, Ipek Kocaömer
Date: 2022
Topics: Antisemitism, Security / Insecurity, Citizenship, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: “Turkish Jews in an unwelcoming public space” focuses on the transformation of citizenship experiences and daily life practices of Turkish Jews in the last decade. I argue that Turkish Jews’ feelings of insecurity have intensified as consequence of the rising religious conservatism under subsequent AKP governments. This sense of insecurity has become even more acute with the rise of anti-Semitism especially after the 2013 Gezi Park Protests and the July 15 coup attempt in 2016. In this chapter, I discuss the main strategies and performative repertoires that Turkish Jews have adopted in response to this adversarial social and political environmen
Whitewashing the Armenian Genocide with Holocaust Heroism
Author(s): Baer, Marc David
Editor(s): Öktem, Kerem; Yosmaoğlu, Ipek Kocaömer
Date: 2022
Topics: Memory, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: This chapter looks at the novel historical claim that Turkey had played a major role rescuing Jews from the Holocaust. This brash claim ignored the fact that Turkish diplomats in Europe had systematically stripped Turkish Jews of their citizenship, or refused to recognize them as citizens. Turkey did not take the opportunity to save tens of thousands of Jewish citizens in Europe from the Nazi reign of terror, instead condemning thousands of them to miserable deaths in the camps. Discounting these inconvenient truths, Jews and Muslims promoted the narrative of Turkish rescue of Jews. The claim was promoted by the Turkish Foreign Ministry working together with Jewish historians outside of Turkey and was explicitly linked to denying recognition of the Armenian genocide. According to this view, genocide is an if/then proposition: if one accepts the fable that Turks and Jews have lived in peace and brotherhood for five hundred years, as opposed to the historical record which narrates a completely different story, then one trusts that Turks could not possibly have perpetrated a genocide against the Armenians.
Creating [Jewish] Sites of Memory in Turkey Where Jews No Longer Exist: From Physical Sites to Virtual Ones
Author(s): Fishman, Louis
Editor(s): Öktem, Kerem; Yosmaoğlu, Ipek Kocaömer
Date: 2022
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Memory
Abstract: This chapter focuses on how the memory of Jews in Turkey is being constructed through the refurbishing of synagogues in areas of Turkey where Jews no longer exist. Some of these projects are carried out by agencies of the central state, others by local municipalities. More recently, the memory of Jews is also being constructed through historical surveys of the Jewish community, which are featured on municipal webpages creating virtual sites of memory. Initiatives aimed at bringing the Jewish past alive have also been launched by independent individuals such as architects and artists, contributing to a growing, if contested and fragmented sphere of Jewish memory in Turkey.