Talk:History of the Jews in Turkey

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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)

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

[edit] The Jews of Turkey later migrated to Israel

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.