726
Itongadol.- In the Etz Hachaim synagogue in Istanbul’s riverfront Ortaköy neighborhood on Monday, the cantor raised his voice to chant a prayer for Israel’s fallen soldiers. The congregation, separated from the shopping district outside their place of worship by heavy blast doors and protected by a security guard, responded with an amen.
In Turkey’s largest city, home to the overwhelming majority of the country’s Jews, both Remembrance Day and Independence Day are marked by communal events despite the state of tension between Ankara and Jerusalem.
That morning one congregant, speaking withThe Jerusalem Post, made sure to point out that the Neve Shalom synagogue, the city’s largest, was still slated to hold a memorial ceremony in honor of Israel’s fallen.
He was quick to deny that there is any fear for the security of their community, saying that “the Jews of Turkey feel fine.”
“There are no problems,” he said. “In Israel they always say there are problems [but] there are no problems. We feel free here.”
Asked about the security checkpoint and the guard outside, he replied that “something happened a few years ago,” referring to the 2003 synagogue bombings.
He also commented that “all of us are Zionists [and] Turkish Jews love Israel very much.”
Neve Shalom was revealed last week to be the target of a bomb plot by al-Qaida militants.
In 2003, 27 people were killed when two truck bombs were driven into the Bet Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues.
Independence Day celebrations were held in a local hotel.
Haim, the sexton of the Etz Hachaim synagogue, who declined to give his last name, as did all the locals who agreed to be interviewed, firmly stated that “there is no fear in the community.”
“Our security is strong,” the former Haifa resident asserted.
However, despite the blustery confidence of many locals, their communal leaders declined to speak on the record, citing organizational policy.
Victor, another local, noted that the only time he had faced anti-Semitism was on a visit to Houston, Texas, and that the feeling in the local community is that they are safe. There is no problem with Muslim neighbors, he said.
Despite the tensions between their country and Israel, Zionism seems an important part of the local Jewish identity and Turkish Jews expressed happiness over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent apology over the deaths of nine Turks aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010.
This, one community member noted, is a “good” thing.
The state of Israel and the land of Israel are conflated in the minds of the Jewish community, Victor said, and most members of the community are Zionists.
“The State of Israel is Eretz Israel so the state and the land are combined in the minds, so you have the people of Israel, the land of Israel and the Torah of Israel,” he said.
The community’s commemorations were attended by Moshe Kimchi, Israel’s consul in Istanbul, who told the Post on Tuesday that “despite how political relations” stand between Turkey and Israel, the number of flights between the two countries has actually increased.
Kimchi said that the consulate’s relations with both the local Turkish authorities and the Jewish community could be characterized as positive.
“We have very good relations with all the leaders of the community and meet with them from time to time and I go to the synagogue for every celebration and holiday,” he said.
In his address to the community, Kimchi emphasized “the price Israel paid for achieving independence.”
One consular official noted that “the community also commemorate[s] their fallen sons in the IDF and from the two terror attacks in recent years.”