Talk:History of the Jews in Turkey

Latest comment: 7 months ago by ModernDayTrilobite in topic Requested move 21 August 2023

Untitled edit

so interesting article Nevertelles a comment You said "Sultan Bayezid II sent Kemal Reis to save the Sephardic Jews of Spain from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and granted them permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire." Well the text is writen as if the Spanish Inquisition were killing jews As you know that was not true The King of spains give orders not to kill jews if not to send it away if they are not convert to cristianity In order to clarify please check yorur text Ferdinant Of Aragon was not a Hitler an the Spanis Inquisition in spite of Anglos propaganda tales fortunatly were not for us the German SS The conflict was mantaining in term an level of religion not of racism ( as did the King of Portugal) And finaly thank for your article. Best regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.145.212.253 (talk) 19:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Comment edit

Great work. Just a few edits. It is inconsitant with Wiki style to place Thessaly as Turkey in at the time in question. At the time of Alexander, Thessally would be part of Greece. Wiki style uses Byzantine Empire for Eastern Roman Empire. I have not removed the original I have added Byszantine as well, which is factually correct. After all there are contuation notations during the Byzantine period.

Indeed there is a lot of valuable information to add in the period before 1300 where there seems to be a a bit of a gap. It makes it seem as though there were not commuinties, when in fact there were many famous communities throughout Asia Minor in Hellenistic and Byzantine times. They should be the same emphasis as the period after the expulsion from Spain, but it is not to difficult to put togethr a couple of paragraphs

Wiki style has these as histories in a place, for example The Jews of France etc. 138.88.243.94 00:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

26,000 Jews in Turkey doesn't seem like that much, given how many were in the Ottoman Empire before. I understand the Ottoman Empire was much larger than Turkey, but I'd imagine at least there would be a lot around the commercial and political center in Istanbul, especially when you mention Jews fleeing from Europe to Turkey during WWII. Was there a mass migration to Israel? Were there any ethnic tensions in modern times that prompted large movements? The article makes it seems like all the Jews that went to Turkey never left, but 26,000 isn't that much, so it seems odd to me given how much was written earlier about the impressive vibrant midevil and early modern Turkish Jew community

As mentioned below, most Jews migrated to Israel from Turkey - a large number of Jews fled the Holocaust to Turkey, as the Turkish consular staff in Europe saved a huge number, but they were all funnelled toward Palestine as Turkey was facing severe food shortages and was still dealing with the enormous burden of the refugees from the Balkan Wars and WWI, and the total devastation of Turkey in that period.
Unfortunately, a large percentage of Ottoman Jews lived in regions lost to the Ottomans, including Salonika, where they were an outright majority, and most of these were lost in the Holocaust.
See:
Stanford J. Shaw, Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey's Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. - jpiccone

The Jews of Turkey later migrated to Israel edit

The vast majority of the European Jews (mainly Ashkenazi) who fled to Turkey from persecution and Nazi extermination later migrated to the newly founded State of Israel. The majority of the long established Turkish Jewish community (almost all Sephardic) also migrated to Israel since its establishment in 1948, especially in the 1950's and 1960's mainly due to economic reasons, rather than persecution or idealism. It is estimated that there are 120,000 Sephardic Jews of Turkish descent living in Israel. Despite the economic hardships in the past, the Turkish Jews are the wealthiest community in Turkey today.


A historical article which is Npov and not dedicated to smearing Ottomans and Turks at last... you cant imagine how rare it is in wikipedia.

I just wish it is all true but I can't help but feel a little deceived as there is no mention of events of September 6-7 1956. Indeed there were and are ethnic tensions in turkey which reflect on the jews too. But then of course it might be fair to say that they are the best treated group among ethnic minorities in Turkey.

There is a page in the Hebrew wikipedia on Daniel de Fonseca. דניאל דה פונסקה --YoavD 10:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Lots of Factual Errors and Lack of References edit

This article contains some strange factual errors - for instance, the Ottoman Parliament did not meet between 1877 and 1908 - although there were Jewish representatives in both the first period and the later.

Also, the Ottomans were not involved in a war in 1885 - after the Congress of Berlin, the next war was with Greece in 1897, and then Italy in 1911.

There are also some serious issues with references - for instance, 500,000 seems way too large a number for the Jewish population, and in any case there is no source given for this number. Jpiccone (talk) 18:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Image copyright problem with Image:JewishMuseumofTurkey.gif edit

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RIdiculous opening paragraph! Lunatic typed it! edit

Are you KIDDING???!!!! jews is really Jews and, well, just look at sentence 2, paragraph 1. No person with any mind could have typed THAT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.80.57.142 (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia is not the place for weasel words. — Ekin(talk·@) 12:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Propagandistic POV article omitted the Struma disaster edit

Wikipedia ought to be ashamed of itself for allowing such outright lies,propaganda, and half-truths. Far from being the safe haven for Jewish refugees during World War II, Turkey in fact refused to allow Jewish refugees to disembark on its territory when fleeing from Nazi-occupied Europe. To claim otherwise is to deny the sordid sequence of events that led to the Struma disaster. Even the sole survior of that disaster, who narrowly escaped drowning, was thrown in a Turkish prison.
In 1941 when that event occurred, Britain had a strict quota policy of limiting the number of Jewish refugees to enter Mandate Palestine (destined to effectively cut altogether by 1944). In consort with Britain, Turkey allowed Jewish refugees within that quota the right of passage to Mandate Palestine. However, Britain would not allow ships carrying surplus refugees to continue on their journey, and Turkey would not allow those stranded Jews, and Jewish refugees from Europe in general, to settle or even disembark in Turkey.
Claims or implications that Turkey altruistically opened its doors to the Jewish 'huddled masses' of Europe is a callous and gross revision of history.
Jacob Davidson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 02:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

I can only agree with Jacob, the entire neutrality of this article should be reviewed. Its not the first page that changes real history events or creating wrong conclusion because of some mysterious sources —Preceding unsigned comment added by Santiago84 (talkcontribs) 03:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)Reply

Island edit

I recall hearing on NPR that there is an island off the coast of Turkey with a Jewish majority. However I haven't yet been able to find out which island that is (since Turkey has so many). I'm wondering if such an island could play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; specifically, I think some Israelis might be more willing to reach a compromise with the Palestinians if they would receive said island as compensation for whatever territory they would end up ceding under such a treaty. Stonemason89 (talk) 05:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

a) I do not believe there is any such island. Perhaps you are thinking of Büyükada, which does have a synagogue and is frequented by many of Istanbul's Jews, or perhaps of the island of Rhodes, which during WWII was Italian territory, and where the Turkish consul saved many Turkish citizens who were Jews from the Nazis.
b) Wikipedia talk pages are about improving the Wikipedia article, not about discussing the topic in general. --Macrakis (talk) 14:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

You perhaps talk about the Rhodes Island? It is part of Greece. However it is indeed very close to the Anatolian coasts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.132.96.98 (talk) 17:41, 9 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Alkan's book in footnote 24 edit

My book "Dissent and Heterodoxy" which is reference for the Jews in Yemen in footnote 24 here, deals with the Babis and Baha'is in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey and doesn't have any reference to the Jews in the OE or Turkey except that I mention Jewish messianic currents in Yemen in the 19th century. The same is true for footnote 21 of the Wiki article "History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Necademic (talkcontribs) 13:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

File:Neveshalomistanbul.jpg Nominated for Deletion edit

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Overlap with Jewish exodus article edit

Please see discussion at Talk:Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries#Overlap_with_.22History_of_the_Jews_in....22_articles. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:09, 7 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

External links modified edit

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Move discussion in progress edit

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of the Jews in Abkhazia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Ashkenazis jews are turks https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ashkenazi-jews-descended-ancient-turkey-new-research — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.196.188.16 (talk) 22:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Turkish-born Jews in Israel "maintain their Turkish culture." edit

Regarding Turkish-born Jews in Israel, the article says that "they maintain their Turkish culture."

It would be good to list what elements of Turkish culture Turkish-born Jews in Israel have maintained and whether their descendants maintain them too.S. Valkemirer (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 21 August 2023 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: not moved. Several of the titling criteria were raised in this discussion. The factor that most swung me towards finding "not moved" rather than "no consensus" was the WP:COMMONNAME argument, as Ngrams were provided that make a strong case for the current title being the COMMONNAME. Most other lines of argument, by either side of the discussion, were more contested. The nomination argued that the current phrasing was "bizarre", an implicit WP:NATURAL argument, but other participants argued that the existing title felt more natural than the proposed one. It was also noted that the proposed title would be more WP:CONCISE, but opponents of the move argued that the difference in title length would be fairly trivial. Opponents of the move also raised WP:CONSISTENT, noting the pattern of other "History of the Jews in Foo" articles, but supporters expressed a desire to change that convention more broadly, so the consistency argument did not hold much weight in my evaluation.
Ultimately, the argument that seems to have been most decisive is WP:COMMONNAME, as it was backed by clear evidence and was not disputed by other participants. This tipped the balance of arguments and led me to find a rough consensus in favor of the current title. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talkcontribs) 15:26, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

History of the Jews in TurkeyHistory of Jews in Turkey – Bizarre phrasing, make it concise. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 20:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:01, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

  • Support Rreagan007 (talk) 01:03, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. Simple reversal of a redirect. Station1 (talk) 01:52, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    But see below. Station1 (talk) 00:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Support Parham wiki (talk) 13:19, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose for consistency: History of the Jews in Germany, History of the Jews in Namibia, History of the Jews in Russia, History of the Jews in the United States, History of the Jews in Thessaloniki, etc. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    Well, those pages also follow this bizarre phrasing. Just because it's widely used doesn't mean it's good. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 14:19, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    I'm not a native English speaker so I don't know whether this phrasing is bizarre or not. But we cannot just change the name of this page. If we do it, we should do it for all these pages. The discussion can happen here, as long as other pages are notified as well. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    That is a very good point. I was unaware of all those other articles when making my original comment above. Although the current title is not bizarre, I do think the proposed title is slightly better, as being more concise if nothing else. However, it does make sense to propose moving all similarly-named articles at once. This proposal could either be closed and recreated as a multi-move request (which I would support), or we can just continue with this proposal, after which, if it's successful, we can then go on to propose moving the other articles too. Station1 (talk) 00:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    This discussion tried that on an even larger scale but was closed as a trainwreck. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 01:10, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    I see. It does appear that consensus to move all those articles would be difficult to achieve. Station1 (talk) 02:07, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose at least for now, as I'd look to usage in sources as a starting point, and I worry about ngrams like history of (the) Jews or history of (the) Jews in (suggesting "the Jews" is more common). I'd be less likely to be persuaded by individual voters' freestanding theorizing/opinions about the grammar or semantics. Unfortunately the 2020 RM opposition seemed to be more about the latter. I also think the conciseness factor is pretty negligible with only a difference of one little word "the". Adumbrativus (talk) 00:58, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    Oppose unless this article is now more about individual Jews and nuclear Jewish families than it about (as it had been about) the formal or informal Jewish community in Greece. For a very crude analogy, The Lives of Artists differs from The Lives of the Artists (and also from Lives of Artists and Lives of the Artists).
    Were we talking aloud in current English-language idiom, we almost invariably put "the", "a" or "an" in front; i.e. I (a native speaker of current English) wouldn't say aloud, "I want to talk about history of Jews in Greece" or even "I want to talk about history of the Jews in Greece"; we'd say "I want to talk about the history of [the] Jews in Greece" or "I want to talk about a history of the Jews in Greece".
    Works of reference and their indexes generally omit beginning articles (The Earth or A History or An Account) for the very simple reason that they are organised in alphabetical order and when you look for "The Bill of Rights" you don't want to plough through a long string of redundant (and wasteful) "The"s before hitting "Bill". The same reasons don't apply to "the" (or "a" or "an") in the middle of a title.
    ¶ [As an aside, The Bronx (one of the few Wikipedia articles that does begin with "The") had a long-drawn-out debate over whether to entitle it "Bronx" or "The Bronx" and whether to include or capitalise "The" in the middle of a sentence. See Talk:The Bronx#Name and capitalization.]
    Sorry for the length of this; were I less sleepy or (like Voltaire) had I more time, it would have been more concise. —— Shakescene (talk) 02:06, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    @Shakescene: Hmmm. I, too, am a native English speaker, but the phrasing still sounds bizarre to me. If I wanted to hear about the history of Jewish people in Turkey, I'd say "what's the history of Jews in Turkey?" in the same way I'd say "what's the history of Arabs in Ethiopia?" or "what's the history of Punjabi in Nepal?" Adding the in front of the name of the group of people seems like an odd specifier – as if we're talking about a specific subset of {group} – those {x}s. The {x}s. You know, the family that lives a few blocks down? Yeah, them. As opposed to {x} in the broad sense. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but that's my shaky rationale. Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 11:36, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    @Edward-Woodrow I think we're thinking along roughly the same lines, which is why I conditioned my "Oppose" with "at least for now" — are we talking about the Pappases down the road, or about all the Pappases in Salonika, or about the Pappas family or clan within Salonka's Jewish community? My long-ago editorial experience was actually on the History of the Jews in Thessaloniki, so perhaps the emphasis in this article has changed to (or always been) more on individual Greek Jewish individuals or communities (thus dropping "the" from "Jews") than on the Jews as a community. Sorry for the confusion; I'm a little muddled in expressing my thoughts. —— Shakescene (talk) 13:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
    For whatever little it might be worth, Josephus wrote what is customarily translated in English as "Antiquities of the Jews".

    (Latin: Antiquitates Iudaicae; Greek: Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία, Ioudaikē archaiologia)

    Latin rarely includes definite articles; I don't know about Greek. What seems relevant to me is the customary translation of Josephus's Greek title in English. More recently Lucy Dawidowicz wrote The War Against the Jews, not "The War against Jews". Are we talking about the history of the Jews in Greece, or the history of Jews in Greece? —— Shakescene (talk) 18:28, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose This is the common usage in the English language, including in most academic books and articles. But beyond that, the sheer size/length of the list of current articles on WP with the common title "History of the Jews in..." is really mind boggling for me. There are such articles/histories about every possible single little place on earth, it seems to me. That would be impractical, nay really impossible to change. As for this specific case, the "History of the Jews in Turkey" is no small potato, compared to the others. It is a very central and important one, in my view, and it does not need to be changed. It works fine as it is, and we should spend our editing time improving the contents, not discussing a little definite article in the title. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 22:16, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Jewish history has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:00, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Judaism has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:00, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Turkey has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:01, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.