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For Turkish Jewry, the End Might Be in Sight

Jews have lived in what is now Turkey since ancient times, and the Ottoman empire was once home to one of the world’s largest and most important Jewish communities. Now, writes Michael Rubin, that long history may be coming to a finale:

Turkish officials and their proxies argue . . . that Turkey remains both tolerant and democratic. . . . The Turkish Heritage Organization, for example, argued that “Turkey has been a safe haven for Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis, and Muslim nations for generations.” That may have once been true for minorities besides Armenians and Kurds but, increasingly, it’s no longer the case for Yazidis, Christians, and Jews. . . .

The Erdogan years have been scary ones for Turkey’s Jews, with wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories becoming increasingly commonplace. Many Jews have nonetheless remained hopeful that the repression and intolerance would pass. There were reasons for hope: Turkey was never a perfect democracy, but, even after setbacks, its developmental trajectory was toward greater tolerance.

No longer. In many societies, Jews have been the canary in the coal mine. When a country loses its Jews, it is a sign that its democratic evolution has halted. Four years ago, some Turkish Jews began to leave. That trickle appears to be turning into a flood. . . . [D]escendants of many of the Jews who fled Spain for the safety of the Ottoman Empire more than 500 years ago now seek to return to Spain or Portugal.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Anti-Semitism, Jewish World, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey, Turkish Jewry

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic