HÜRRIYET: ISTANBUL - The biggest problem of Jews in Turkey is that most people perceive them as foreigners and not citizens of this country, according to the leader of the Jewish community in Turkey.
While the concerns of the Jewish community in Turkey about possible antagonism over Israeli attacks in Gaza remain, the leader of the Jewish community in Turkey said they wanted equality and democracy, not tolerance.
"Everybody can criticize Israel’s policies and we respect that. However, any anti-Israel statement can easily turn into a condemnation of Jews," Silvyo Ovadya told daily Milliyet in an interview published yesterday. "What we are concerned about is the Jewish part, not the Israel part. We do not want people to insult our religion," he said.
Harsh rhetoric against Israel from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his much-criticized reference to 500 years ago when fleeing Jews were received by the Ottomans and the Education Ministry’s directive to hold a one minute’s silence for Palestinians who had been killed are among the government’s moves that received strong reactions from both within Turkey and abroad. Some observers said Turkey’s Jewish community felt physically threatened by growing anti-Israeli sentiment among the public.
"Whenever there is a war in the Middle East anti-Semitism goes up in the world. One reason is the inability to distinguish between an Israeli national and a Jew who is a citizen of another country. This is exactly our problem in Turkey, people see us as part of Israel," Ovadya said.
Explaining that their biggest problem was that people saw them as outsiders, Ovadya said they had no problems worshiping or holding religious services. "Of course there are restrictions. For example have you ever seen a Jewish ambassador or military officer? However, our problem is something else. We do our military service, we fulfill all our civic responsibilities and we are raised with Turkish culture and language. When somebody calls us a foreigner despite all that, it offends us," he said. >>> | Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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