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Turkey and the Rescue of
European Jews

This book exposes Turkish policies concerning European Jews during the
Hitler era, focusing on three events: 1. The recruitment of German-Jewish
scholars by the Turkish government after Hitler came to power, 2. The
fate of Jews of Turkish origin in German-controlled France during WWII,
3. The Turkish approach to Jewish refugees who were in transit to Palestine
through Turkey. These events have been widely presented in literature and
popular media as conspicuous evidence of the humanitarian policies of the
Turkish government, as well as indications of the compassionate acts of the
Turkish officials vis-à-vis Jewish people both in the prewar years of the Nazi
regime and during WWII. This volume contrasts the evidence and facts from
a wealth of newly disclosed documents with the current populist presenta-
tion of Turkey as protector of Jews.

I. Izzet Bahar received his doctoral degree from the Jewish Studies Program
at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently working as an independent
scholar.
Routledge Studies in Modern European History

1 Facing Fascism 8 From Slave Trade to Empire

The Conservative Party and the European Colonisation of Black
European dictators 1935–1940 Africa 1780s–1880s
Nick Crowson Edited by Olivier
Pétré-Grenouilleau
2 French Foreign and Defence
Policy, 1918–1940 9 The Russian Revolution of 1905
The Decline and Fall of a Centenary Perspectives
Great Power Edited by Anthony Heywood and
Edited by Robert Boyce Jonathan D. Smele

3 Britain and the Problem of 10 Weimar Cities

International Disarmament The Challenge of Urban
1919–1934 Modernity in Germany
Carolyn Kitching John Bingham

4 British Foreign Policy 11 The Nazi Party and the German

1874–1914 Foreign Office
The Role of India Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Arthur
Sneh Mahajan L. Smith, Jr.

5 Racial Theories in Fascist Italy 12 The Politics of Culture in

Aaron Gilette Liberal Italy
From Unification to Fascism
6 Stormtroopers and Crisis in the Axel Körner
Nazi Movement
Activism, Ideology and 13 German Colonialism, Visual
Dissolution Culture and Modern Memory
Thomas D. Grant Edited by Volker M. Langbehn

7 Trials of Irish History 14 German Colonialism and

Genesis and Evolution of a National Identity
Reappraisal 1938–2000 Edited by Michael Perraudin and
Evi Gkotzaridis Jürgen Zimmerer
15 Landscapes of the 21 European Border Regions in
Western Front Comparison
Materiality during the Great War Overcoming Nationalistic Aspects
Ross J. Wilson or Re-Nationalization?
Edited by Katarzyna Stokłosa and
16 West Germans and the Nazi Gerhard Besier
Legacy
Caroline Sharples 22 The Red Brigades and the
Discourse of Violence
17 Alan S. Milward and a Century Revolution and Restoration
of European Change Marco Briziarelli
Edited by Fernando Guirao,
Frances M. B. Lynch, and Sigfrido 23 History, Memory, and
M. Ramírez Pérez Trans-European Identity
Unifying Divisions
18 War, Agriculture, and Food Aline Sierp
Rural Europe from the 1930s to
the 1950s 24 Constructing a German Diaspora
Edited by Paul Brassley, Yves The “Greater German Empire,”
Segers and Leen Van Molle 1871–1914
Stefan Manz
19 Totalitarian Dictatorship
New Histories 25 Violence, Memory, and History
Edited by Daniela Baratieri, Mark Western Perceptions of
Edele and Giuseppe Finaldi Kristallnacht
Edited by Colin McCullough and
20 Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Nathan Wilson
Germany
The “Euthanasia Programs” 26 Turkey and the Rescue of
Edited by Susan Benedict and European Jews
Linda Shields I. Izzet Bahar
This page intentionally left blank
Turkey and the Rescue of
European Jews

I. Izzet Bahar
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of I. Izzet Bahar to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bahar, I. Izzet, 1953– author.
Turkey and the rescue of European Jews / by I. Izzet Bahar.
pages cm — (Routledge studies in modern European history ; 26)
1. Jews—Turkey—History—20th century. 2. Jewish refugees—Turkey—
History—20th century. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Influence.
4. Jews, Turkish—France—History—20th century. 5. Turkey—Ethnic
relations. I. Title.
DS135.T8B334 2014
940.53'183509561—dc23
2014035543
ISBN: 978-1-138-80125-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-75506-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

List of Abbreviations ix
Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 Turkey’s Approach to Minorities, in Particular to the Jewish

Minority, in the First 15 Years of the Republic 18

PART I
German Scholars in Turkey

2 Humanity or Raison d’État, German or Jewish: The German

Scholars in Turkey, 1933–1952 49

PART II
Jews of Turkish Origin in France

3 Myths and Facts: What Happened to Turkish Jews in France

during WWII? 75

4 Anti-Jewish Economic Measures in Wartime France and

Their Effect on Turkish-Origin Jews 120

5 “Irregular” Turkish Jews in France in 1944: The Aroused

International Interest and the Turkish Stance 148

6 The Rescue of Jews of Turkish Origin: Post-1990 Interviews

and Testimony 179
viii Contents
PART III
Turkey and the Jewish Refugee Problem

7 The Approach of Turkey to the Jewish Refugee Problem 201

Conclusion 253

Appendices 267
Bibliography 291
Index 303
Abbreviations

AZO American Zionist Organization

CGQJ Comissariat General aux Questions Juives
(General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs)
CHF Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası
(Republican People’s Part)
CUP Ittihat ve Terraki Cemiyeti
(Committee of Union and Progress)
CZA Central Zionist Archives
FRUS Publication—Foreign Relations of the United States
FO British Foreign Office
HICEM Hebrew Immigration Aid and Colonization Society
ICRC . . . International Committee of Red Cross
IGCR . . . Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees
JA Jewish Agency
JTA Jewish Telegraphic Agency
LC Library of Congress
MBF Miltarbefehlshaber in Frankeich
(German Military Command in France)
NARA U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
OSE Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants
(Organization for Aid to Children)
PCO British Palestine Consular Office
PRO British Public Record Office
RSHA Reich Security Main Office
SCAP Service de Controle des Administrateurs Provisoires
SIPO-SD Sicherheitspolizei
(German Security Police and Security Service)
SP Steinhardt Papers—Library of Congress
SSC Stanford Shaw Collection
TCBA Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Başbakanlık Arşivleri
(Turkish Republic Prime Minister’s Archives)
x Abbreviations
UGIF Union Générale des Israélites de France
(General Union of Israelites of France)
USHMM U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
WJC World Jewish Congress
WRB War Refugee Board
Preface

It was during my work as a teaching assistant for a course on the Holocaust

at University of Pittsburgh that I was attracted to study Turkish policies
during the Holocaust. The instructor was Professor Alexander Orbach, who
became later my thesis advisor. Contrary to my initial thoughts, his over-
view of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust was far from being depressive.
Like many of his students, I got captivated by his way of putting everything
into well-structured, articulated, and interesting stories that would engage
everyone in the classroom. Even more! The course was thought provoking.
As a Sephardic Turkish Jew, many questions arose in my mind regarding
Turkey’s position in the Holocaust. Yes, Turkey was one of the five neutral
countries of Europe during WWII, and she did not play any role in the
political and military developments of those years. Thus, it would be rea-
sonable to assume that she had no connection to the great tragedy of Holo-
caust that erased an important part of the European Jewry. After all, wasn’t
it the Ottoman Empire who gave a hand to Sephardic Jews in 1492 when
they were expelled from Spain? But, still as one of the bystanders of the
Holocaust, what were Turkey’s policy and politics in the years before and
during WWII vis-à-vis European Jews? Jews were then desperately search-
ing for means of escaping, first from racist implementations, then from per-
secutions and atrocities in their countries. Were they allowed to find refuge
in Turkey, or even to use Turkey as transit to immigrate to Palestine? The
answers to these questions deserved the same academic rigor as any other
topic Professor Orbach covered in his Holocaust course. This book aims to
answer these questions and it is a culmination of a dedicated research done
upon thorough analysis of a vast number of documents extracted from vari-
ous archives in many countries.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude
to my mentor, Professor Alexander Orbach, for not only inspiring me to
pursue this research, but also for his valuable guidance during the early
stages of this work. He read the first drafts several times, made to-the-point
comments and patiently corrected my English. I would not have pursued
doctoral studies, and I would not have taken this long path of becoming
a research scholar as a second career, without his constant support and
xii Preface
encouragement as the Director of the Jewish Studies Program at University
of Pittsburgh. I would like to thank Professor Adam Shear as well for his
guidance during my doctoral studies. My investigation of the fate of Jews of
Turkish origin residing in France during WWII first began within the scope
of an independent study that I undertook and completed under his men-
torship. I benefited from his encouraging and stimulating comments and
insightful suggestions at all stages of my work.
I would like to express my gratitude to Susan Spence for editing the final
form of this book. As a careful, intellectual reader outside of the field, she
made very useful remarks and significantly contributed to making the book
more coherent and more accessible to a broader audience. I also owe thanks
to Anita Ender from Israel, the wife of my childhood friend Moris, for the
meticulous translations from German and Hebrew during the course of this
work. I feel lucky to have interacted with such a bright, professional, and
capable person, eager to translate documents within days, no matter how
long they were, even though she was busy with her grandchildren.
Here I have to mention my play writer, poet and historian mother, Beki
L. Bahar. Her sensitiveness that could be seen in her poems, such as the
one she wrote after her visit to Auschwitz, and her wisdom reflected on her
description of the bygone social life of Turkish Jews in her plays and mem-
oirs for sure had an impact on me that provoked my interest in history and
my passion to unearth the events of the past. In fact, what could be more
stimulating than growing up in a family where poems were read loudly,
plays were discussed fervently, and talking history and politics was common
in daily life?
Last, but not least, I would like to express my deep admiration to my
dear wife who has always been helpful and encouraging. This book would
not have taken this final shape if it were not for many engaging discussions
we had during the course of this work. She continually challenged me with
her intellectual curiosity, thoughtful comments, and difficult questions. But
more than everything, as a real and brilliant scientist whose vivid enthusi-
asm and joy for doing research is fascinating, she is an unendingly inspiring
role model for me.
Introduction

On May 18, 2011, more than 250 viewers packed one of theaters at the
64th Cannes Film Festival and exploded into excited applause at the ending
of the “first documentary drama about the Holocaust produced in a Muslim
country.”1 Standing for an extended ovation, some of these viewers were
in tears.2 With colorful cinematography, dramatic effects, and convincing
testimonies, the film described how Turkish diplomats rescued “hundreds of
Jews in Nazi-occupied France” from a possible lethal destiny during WWII.
At that special gala night, the distinguished audience—comprised of dip-
lomats from Turkey and Israel, members of the Jewish community on the
French Riviera and in Monaco, a few representatives from Turkish Jewry,
and many festival goers—was deeply moved by the sublime goals of the
film, which were described eloquently by its director: “to show that human
values must transcend all religious, ethnic, and cultural divides, and pay
homage to those brave individuals who did not allow themselves to stagnate
in indifference and apathy in the face of the suffering of others.”3
The Turkish Passport was not the first film on the striking story of the
rescue of Turkish Jews living in France during the war years. Desperate
Hours, filmed by an American producer in 2001 and frequently screened
on different occasions for American Jewish organizations, also colorfully
described the efforts of Turkey and its diplomats to protect and rescue their
Jewish fellow nationals in France at their most desperate time. Furthermore,
in 2002, the rescue of Turkish Jews from occupied France became the sub-
ject of a novel written by a well-known Turkish novelist.4 In spite of extreme
danger and risk of arrest by the Gestapo, the main character of this novel,
a young idealistic Turkish diplomat, did not hesitate to hide a group of
mostly non-Turkish Jews, supplying them with forged Turkish documents
and enabling their travel to Turkey by a special train sent from Turkey.
Interestingly, in the years following its publication in Turkey, the novel was
translated both into English and French, thereby gaining a wider interna-
tional readership. It is possible that all of these works, by virtue of the richly
articulated discussions that they inspired in the media, the organized events
in which they were presented, and their references to official Turkish rheto-
ric, popularized a benevolent image of Turkey and its diplomats in regard to
2 Introduction
rescuing desperate Jews, particularly those from German-occupied France
during WWII.
The rescue of Turkish Jews in France is not the only event that promoted
an image of helpless Jewish victims of the atrocious Nazi government and
the humanitarian Turkish intervention that rescued them. The arrival of
more than one hundred German-Jewish academicians and technicians, who
had been dismissed from their posts in German-controlled Europe, to work
in Turkish universities in 1930s was also presented as a compassionate ini-
tiative of Turkey to save suffering Jews from the injustices and cruelties of
the Third Reich. Indeed, the first part of the movie Desperate Hours5 reflects
how these Jewish scholars found a “safe haven in Turkey.”
Interestingly, both of these Turkish humanitarian deeds in regard to
saving Jews from the persecution and immoral policies of Nazi Germany
were first promoted in the 1990s, more than fifty years after WWII, by
the Quincentennial Foundation with the aim of commemorating the five
hundredth year of Spanish expulsion and Sephardic Jewish immigration to
the Ottoman Empire. In fact, it was through the publications and rhetoric
of the Foundation that these two deeds were first brought to both Turkish
and international attention. In the discourse of the Foundation, there was a
conspicuous desire to link these two events with the Ottomans’ benevolence
in accepting many of the Jews who were persecuted by and expelled from
Spain in 1492 and the following years.
A speech given by U.S. House of Representatives member Stephen J.
Solarz on September 17, 1990 illustrates how this rhetoric found ready
adherents from the beginning and was introduced as a well-founded,
unquestionable fact:

This tradition [the embrace of Jews fleeing expulsion by Spain and

pogroms] has continued into modern times, as demonstrated in 1935
by the invitation of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, to
prominent German Jewish professors fleeing the scourge of Nazism.
While most of the world turned its back on the Jews and condemned
them to the horrors of the Nazi genocide, Turkey welcomed them much
as they had in 1492.6

The newly emerged perception of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, without
distinction, as equally benevolent with regard to helping Jews who were in
desperate conditions in another part of the world was also evident in the
words of U.S. President George Bush in his message of May 17, 1992 on the
occasion of the Eleventh Annual Turkish-American Day Parade: “Indeed,
the Turkish people are to be commended for a tradition of welcoming
refugees—be they Jews from Spain in 1492, or German Jews fleeing the
Nazi regime in the 1930s.”7
A third subject, the portrayal of Turkey as a helpful presence vis-à-vis
non-Turkish Jewish war refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe, is another,
 Introduction 3
less emphasized, part of the discourse that emerged after the 1990s. After
June 1940, with France’s occupation by Germany and Italy’s entrance into
the war, travel over the Mediterranean became impossible, and Turkey
became strategically important as the only remaining route to Palestine.
For many European Jews desperately fleeing German atrocities, it became a
matter of life and death to obtain a Turkish visa to enter and cross over Tur-
key. An examination of the degree to which Turkey allowed Jewish refugees
to immigrate to Palestine over her territories will give us further insight to
evaluate the policies of the period and to reconstruct the complete picture
of Turkey’s role in saving European Jews during the war years. Similar to
its role in helping German-Jewish scholars and Jews of Turkish origin in
France, in publications, Turkey’s approach to the Jewish refugee problem
also have been exalted with the help of humanitarian arguments:

Great Britain and the United States refused to accept large numbers of
Jewish refugees. But Turkey did allow the Jewish Agency and the other
organizations to bring these people through the country on their way
to Palestine, sending them illegally in small boats from southern Tur-
key when the British refused to allow them to go to Palestine officially.
And when the British were successful in preventing some of these refu-
gees from going to Palestine, the Turkish government allowed them to
remain in Turkey far beyond the limits of their visas, in many cases right
until the end of the war.8

In this study, our aim will be to investigate the true nature of the three
specific events mentioned above—Turkey’s recruitment of German-Jewish
academicians who were forced out of their academic posts by the Nazis,
Turkey’s response to the predicament of Turkish Jews who were stranded in
France during WWII, and Turkey’s approach to the overall Jewish refugee
problem of the war years—and to see whether the image that was aggres-
sively created after the 1990s, of Turkey as protector and savior of the Jews,
can be justified in light of archival sources.

BACKGROUND

The 1992 celebration of the quincentennial anniversary of the immigration

of Spanish Jews to the Ottoman Empire generated a new wave of interest
in the history of Ottoman and Turkish Jewry, and became a popular topic
among historians. Indeed, even a quick survey of the bibliography on the
topic reveals that the number of studies published after the 1980s on the
Jewish presence in the Ottoman lands and Turkey substantially increased
compared with earlier decades.
For historians, it was a captivating theme—the analysis of a
Jewish community that itself was an amalgam of so many divergent
4 Introduction
subgroups: Romaniote Jews who were the remnants of Byzantine Jewry,
Ashkenazi Jews coming from different parts of both Eastern and Western
Europe, Karaite Jews from South Russia, and finally, Sephardic Jews from the
Iberian Peninsula. The status of this Jewish community, which was more or
less culturally unified in the eighteenth century as the Ottoman/Turkish Sep-
hardic Jewry, was unique and certainly very different from that of contempo-
rary Jewish communities, particularly in Europe. First of all, as subjects of an
Islamic empire, the members of this community were in dhimmi–zimmi sta-
tus. Broadly, this meant that their lives, their properties, and their religious
practices were guaranteed in exchange for their acceptance of the supremacy
of Islam and Muslims and their payment of a poll-tax, the jizyah. But the
Turkish-Jewish community was distinctive because of special features of the
Empire. The Ottoman Empire was not a typical Islamic state. The Turkish
state tradition was more liberal in the practice of Islamic law, Sharia, par-
ticularly in relation to non-Muslims. Predominantly in the earlier centuries
of the Empire, the secular and pragmatic sultanic edicts known as kanun
were more commonly administered than the rigid precepts of the Holy Law
known as Sharia. This implementation was actually a kind of continuation
of the töre–yasa tradition that the Central Asian Mongol/Turkic polities had
introduced in pre-Islamic centuries.9 Even in more recent centuries, in spite
of increased Islamization of the Empire, the discriminatory restrictions laid
down in the dhimma were rarely enforced as strictly as the provisions of the
Sharia law dictated, and open hostility from the Ottoman state or the Mus-
lim population toward Jews remained infrequent.10
In contrast to the Christian European states, where Jews were the only
non-Christian community and their population was rather insignificant in
numbers, in the Ottoman Empire, Jews were not the sole religious minor-
ity. Together with Orthodox Christians (Greeks and Slavs) and Armenians,
they were one of the three major non-Muslim millets of the Empire. As an
important feature of the Empire, particularly in the Rumeli,11 the European
parts of the Empire, and in parts of northeastern Anatolia, the population of
the Christian subjects of the Empire exceeded that of the Muslims.12 In other
words, the Turks/Muslims were a minority in these territories throughout
Ottoman history. Indeed, census results of the early nineteenth century illus-
trate that in spite of centuries of settlement policies and incentives for con-
version,13 the European region of the Empire still remained densely Christian
until its last days.14
Why it is so important to emphasize that there was a dominant Christian
majority in the western territories of the Empire? This demographic feature
is essential for understanding why it was a necessity, rather than a choice,
for the Empire not to be coercive, but to be tolerant and pragmatic in its
approach to its non-Muslim, especially Christian, subjects whose harmoni-
ous and eager participation in the Ottoman polity was crucial. Thus, the
Ottoman state gave non-Muslim communities a wide measure of de facto
autonomy, and even accommodated their communal organizations into the
 Introduction 5
formal structure of the state. Otherwise, it would not have been possible
to govern an Empire whose composition was so ethnically, culturally, and
religiously heterogeneous.
Jews were the beneficiaries of this situation. In the diverse and pluralistic
Ottoman society, they were less extraordinary. As one of the stones of the
colorful Ottoman mosaic, they were not an uncommon, misfitting, and even
eccentric people as they were in the Christian world. Furthermore, given
their neutral and apolitical character, Jews were regarded as a more reliable,
loyal, and accommodating pool of subjects who would enable the Empire
to balance the demographic composition in those territories that were pre-
dominantly Christian. For example, in the wake of the conquest of Rhodes
in 1523 and Cyprus in 1571, imperial orders were given for the transfer
of Jews to these newly acquired provinces. In particular, the order given to
the governor of sanjak of Safed to transfer one thousand wealthy Jews to
Cyprus is well documented.15
With their competence in crafts, commerce, and financial matters, as well
as with their multi-lingual skills and international links, Jews were also an
ideal group to fill sectors of economic activity in which the Ottoman Turks
would not actively engage. For the Ottomans to sustain their non-military
hegemonic assertions against Christian Europe, it was crucial that these eco-
nomic activities be conducted by a group of people whose own interests
were not threatening and whose reliability was not a concern.
From its early days, the Empire always looked with suspicion upon its
Christian subjects and tacitly distrusted their faithfulness. The suspicion
was sometimes well-founded. The Ottomans were aware that their Chris-
tian subjects, due to their religious beliefs and ethnic origins, could have
an affinity towards the western countries with which the Empire was con-
stantly at war. In contrast, as Bernard Lewis emphasizes, “Jews were not
subject to any such suspicion, and in certain situations—as for example, in
the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—there was a
marked preference for appointing Jews to sensitive positions.”16 The refer-
ence to Jews in the official terminology can be seen as an explicit indication
of the Ottomans’ preferential attitude towards them. Although there was no
difference between Christians and Jews in terms of their legal status, Chris-
tians were referred to as “kefere,” namely infidels, in the official documents,
whereas Jews were simply referred to as “Jews.”17
The strategic policy of the Ottoman Empire to be tolerant to non-Muslim
communities in general and to give preferred treatment to Jews in particu-
lar found its reflections in the rare communications and historiography of
the Middle Ages as a presentation of the Ottoman rule as considerate and
caring vis-à-vis its Jewish subjects. On the other hand, the revitalization
of the old Jewish belief of messianism in the years just after the traumatic
Spanish expulsion of the fifteenth century also contributed to the creation
of a highly praised and benevolent image of Ottoman rule, particularly in
Jewish historiography. Although few Jewish histories had been written for
6 Introduction
centuries, there was a short but exceptional resurgence of history writing
in the sixteenth century,18 which attributed a divine role to the Ottoman
Empire. The historians of that period, under messianic impulses, presented
the Empire and Turks as God-oriented people who would punish oppressive
and torturing Christendom and ultimately open the way for a glorious mes-
sianic age. As a consequence, in these histories, Jewish life in the Empire was
presented uncritically, as if it were overwhelmingly peaceful and harmoni-
ous. This approach to the Ottoman Empire and her Jewry influenced later
historians19 to a considerable extent, and became pivotal alongside other
factors to the creation and development of an overly pleasant, even mythic
image, of the Ottoman Empire and its Jewry, particularly in the common
collective memory and consciousness of the Jewish world.20
Here, it is not our aim to speculate on the extent to which different fac-
tors have been influential in the emergence of the positive image of Otto-
man rule with regard to her approach to Jewish subjects. What we want to
emphasize is that, in spite of some criticism of the excessive and mythical
exaltation of Ottoman rule and an “idyllic vision”21 of Jewish life in the
Empire, there is a broad consensus among historians that in the Ottoman
state system, there was no significant oppression or restriction of Jews in
their social, cultural, and economic activities. In fact, as stated by Avigdor
Levi, “the lot of Ottoman Jewry was always closely interwoven with that of
the Ottoman state.”22 Thus, when deterioration in conditions of the Jewish
community began to surface in the eighteenth century, the declining admin-
istrative and economic order of the Empire was one of its major causes.23

THE COMMEMORATION OF THE 500TH ANNIVERSARY

OF THE IMMIGRATION OF SPANISH JEWS TO THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE

In 1982, the idea of celebrating the quincentennial anniversary of the Jewish

emigration from Spain first appeared in the weekly Turkish Jewish newspa-
per Şalom.24 Notably, the Ottoman Jewish press collections reflect that the
four hundredth anniversary of the immigration was also celebrated with a
special program in 1892. This commemoration was seen as an occasion to
acknowledge the continuing gratitude and loyal feelings of Ottoman Jewry
to the Sultan. The idea to celebrate the quincentennial year in an organized
way gave rise to the Quincentennial Foundation in 1989 as a product of the
initiative of a group of members of the Turkish Jewish community.25
The intention of organizing a series of celebratory events to mark this
anniversary received warm interest and encouragement from the Turkish
government. Recommendations were made for the organization of pro-
grams on a wide, even sensational, scale that would attract the interest of
the international community as well. Indeed, as can be seen, the declared
main purposes of the Foundation at its inauguration in July 1989 went far
 Introduction 7
beyond the commemoration or celebration of an event that happened five
hundred years before. The leaders of the initiative highlighted the following
goals for their undertaking:

An example to Humanity
The main purposes of the Quincentennial Foundation
To remind the whole world, by all available means, [of] the high human
qualities of the Turkish people as Nation and State;
To announce at home and abroad the humanitarian approach of the
Turkish people to those who fled their land and chose Turkey26 as their
own home, in order to escape the uprise [upsurge] of bigotry and to
safeguard their liberty of creed and beliefs,
To help the Jewish citizens to express their gratitude to the Turkish
Nation for this humanly [humane] act of five centuries ago.27

A foreword written in 1996 by the Foundation’s chairman, Jak V. Kamhi,

to a publication of the Foundation illustrates that seven years after its
establishment, the Foundation’s mission was further enhanced, and even
described as “sacred”:

It is common knowledge that the Quincentennial Foundation has two

main goals. The first one is to remind the whole world of the high human
qualities of the Turkish people, to those who approached with goodwill,
by showing what they did not know and confronting the malicious with
historical facts. The second goal of the Foundation, was to assist the
Jewish citizens of Turkey, who are now [an] inseparable part of the
Turkish Nation, in expressing their gratitude for the humanly embrace
that their ancestors encountered in the Turkish lands five centuries ago.
. . . We surpassed our goals and reached far, proved that the political
pretention [that] those two different religions, i.e. Islam and Judaism,
can never co-exist peacefully, because they were like fire and water, was
wrong. That Moslems and Jews lived peacefully side by side for more
than five centuries in Turkey and this harmonious co-existence is still
going on today.
But most important of all, the Quincentennial Foundation countered
the action of those who wanted to disrupt the peace among people; it
showed that the Moslem religion was not what they were trying to prove,
but the symbol of respect for other beliefs and of unlimited love for
humanity, as reflected by the attitude of the Turkish people. The Foun-
dation will pursue its efforts to fulfill relentlessly this sacred mission.28

In the inaugural statement of the Foundation, and even more in Kamhi’s

rhetoric, it is easy to see that they aimed to project an event that happened
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