History of the Jews in Turkey

Turkish Jews
*Türk Yahudileri / Türk Musevileri*
יהודים טורקים‎
*Djudios Turkos / Cudios Turkos*
Total population
	est. 330,000–450,000
Regions with significant populations
Israel	280,000
Turkey	14,500 (2022)
United States	16,000[citation needed]
Canada	8,000[citation needed]
Languages
	Hebrew (in Israel), Turkish, Judaeo-Spanish, English, French, Greek, Yevanic (extinct), Levantine Arabic Kurdish
Religion
	Judaism
Related ethnic groups
	Jews, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Spanish Jews, Greek Jews

The history of the Jews in Turkey (Turkish: Türk Yahudileri or Türk Musevileri; Hebrew: יהודים טורקים, romanized: Yehudim Turkim; Ladino: Djudios Turkos) covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.

There have been Jewish communities in Anatolia since at least the beginning of the common era. Anatolia's Jewish population before Ottoman times primarily consisted of Greek-speaking Romaniote Jews, with a handful of dispersed Karaite communities. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, many Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal and South Italy expelled by the Alhambra Decree found refuge across the Ottoman Empire, including in regions now part of Turkey.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire was double (150,000) that of Jews in Poland and Ukraine combined (75,000), far surpassing other Jewish communities to be the largest in the world.^[8]^[9] This influx played a pivotal role in shaping the predominant identity of Ottoman Jews.^[10]

Jews are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey, together with Armenians, Greeks,^[11]^[12]^[13] and Bulgarians.^[14]^[15]^[16] Today, the vast majority of Turkish Jews live in Israel, though Turkey itself still has a modest Jewish population, where the vast majority live in Istanbul, and the remainder in İzmir.

^ Israel Central Bureau of Statistics - Estimated numbers of Turkish born Jews in Israel Archived 14 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine (in Hebrew)
^ Rabbi Menachem Levine (4 December 2022). "History of the Jews of Turkey". Aish Torah.
^ "Turkey Virtual Jewish History Tour - Jewish Virtual Library". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
^ "Why Jews in Terror-stricken Turkey Aren't Fleeing to Israel Yet". Haaretz. Haaretz.com. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
^ Jewish Population by country 2021
^ "Antiochia Arabic". Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. 30 May 2011. doi:10.1163/1570-6699_eall_eall_com_0018.
^ "Kurdistan". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
^ Shaw, Stanford J. (27 July 2016). The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Springer Publishing. p. 40. ISBN 9781349122356.
^ Levy, Avigdor (1992). The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire. Darwin Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 9780878500888.
^ Cite error: The named reference :03 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Kaya, Nurcan (24 November 2015). "Teaching in and Studying Minority Languages in Turkey: A Brief Overview of Current Issues and Minority Schools". European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online. 12 (1): 315–338. doi:10.1163/9789004306134_013. ISSN 2211-6117. Turkey is a nation–state built on remnants of the Ottoman Empire where non-Muslim minorities were guaranteed the right to set up educational institutions; however, since its establishment, it has officially recognised only Armenians, Greeks and Jews as minorities and guaranteed them the right to manage educational institutions as enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne. [...] Private language teaching courses teach 'traditionally used languages', elective language courses have been introduced in public schools and universities are allowed to teach minority languages.
^ Toktas, Sule (2006b). "EU enlargement conditions and minority protection : a reflection on Turkey's non-Muslim minorities". East European Quarterly. 40: 489–519. ISSN 0012-8449. Turkey signed the Covenant on 15 August 2000 and ratified it on 23 September 2003. However, Turkey put a reservation on Article 27 of the Covenant which limited the scope of the right of ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language. This reservation provides that this right will be implemented and applied in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Turkish Constitution and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.
^ Phillips, Thomas James (16 December 2020). "The (In-)Validity of Turkey's Reservation to Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. 27 (1): 66–93. doi:10.1163/15718115-02701001. ISSN 1385-4879. S2CID 201398995. The fact that Turkish constitutional law takes an even more restrictive approach to minority rights than required under the Treaty of Lausanne was recognised by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in its concluding observations on the combined fourth to sixth periodic reports of Turkey. The CERD noted that "the treaty of Lausanne does not explicitly prohibit the recognition of other groups as minorities" and that Turkey should consider recognising the minority status of other groups, such as Kurds. 50 In practice, this means that Turkey grants minority rights to "Greek, Armenian and Jewish minority communities while denying their possible impact for unrecognized minority groups (e.g. Kurds, Alevis, Arabs, Syriacs, Protestants, Roma etc.)".
^ Bayır, Derya (2013). Minorities and nationalism in Turkish law. Cultural Diversity and Law. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 88–89, 203–204. ISBN 978-1-4094-7254-4.
^ Toktas, Sule; Aras, Bulent (2009). "The EU and Minority Rights in Turkey". Political Science Quarterly. 124 (4): 697–720. doi:10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00664.x. ISSN 0032-3195. JSTOR 25655744.
^ Köksal, Yonca (2006). "Minority Policies in Bulgaria and Turkey: The Struggle to Define a Nation". Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. 6 (4): 501–521. doi:10.1080/14683850601016390. ISSN 1468-3857. S2CID 153761516.

[1] Israel Central Bureau of Statistics - Estimated numbers of Turkish born Jews in Israel Archived 14 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine (in Hebrew)

[2] Rabbi Menachem Levine (4 December 2022). "History of the Jews of Turkey". Aish Torah.

[jewishvirtuallibrary-3] "Turkey Virtual Jewish History Tour - Jewish Virtual Library". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 9 October 2016.

[4] "Why Jews in Terror-stricken Turkey Aren't Fleeing to Israel Yet". Haaretz. Haaretz.com. Retrieved 9 October 2016.

[pop2021-5] Jewish Population by country 2021

[AntiochiaJews-6] "Antiochia Arabic". Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. 30 May 2011. doi:10.1163/1570-6699_eall_eall_com_0018.

[KurdishJews-7] "Kurdistan". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 9 October 2023.

[8] Shaw, Stanford J. (27 July 2016). The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Springer Publishing. p. 40. ISBN 9781349122356.

[9] Levy, Avigdor (1992). The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire. Darwin Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 9780878500888.

[:03-10] Cite error: The named reference :03 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Kaya2015-11] Kaya, Nurcan (24 November 2015). "Teaching in and Studying Minority Languages in Turkey: A Brief Overview of Current Issues and Minority Schools". European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online. 12 (1): 315–338. doi:10.1163/9789004306134_013. ISSN 2211-6117. Turkey is a nation–state built on remnants of the Ottoman Empire where non-Muslim minorities were guaranteed the right to set up educational institutions; however, since its establishment, it has officially recognised only Armenians, Greeks and Jews as minorities and guaranteed them the right to manage educational institutions as enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne. [...] Private language teaching courses teach 'traditionally used languages', elective language courses have been introduced in public schools and universities are allowed to teach minority languages.

[Toktas2006-12] Toktas, Sule (2006b). "EU enlargement conditions and minority protection : a reflection on Turkey's non-Muslim minorities". East European Quarterly. 40: 489–519. ISSN 0012-8449. Turkey signed the Covenant on 15 August 2000 and ratified it on 23 September 2003. However, Turkey put a reservation on Article 27 of the Covenant which limited the scope of the right of ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language. This reservation provides that this right will be implemented and applied in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Turkish Constitution and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.

[Phillips2020-13] Phillips, Thomas James (16 December 2020). "The (In-)Validity of Turkey's Reservation to Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. 27 (1): 66–93. doi:10.1163/15718115-02701001. ISSN 1385-4879. S2CID 201398995. The fact that Turkish constitutional law takes an even more restrictive approach to minority rights than required under the Treaty of Lausanne was recognised by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in its concluding observations on the combined fourth to sixth periodic reports of Turkey. The CERD noted that "the treaty of Lausanne does not explicitly prohibit the recognition of other groups as minorities" and that Turkey should consider recognising the minority status of other groups, such as Kurds. 50 In practice, this means that Turkey grants minority rights to "Greek, Armenian and Jewish minority communities while denying their possible impact for unrecognized minority groups (e.g. Kurds, Alevis, Arabs, Syriacs, Protestants, Roma etc.)".

[Bayır2013-14] Bayır, Derya (2013). Minorities and nationalism in Turkish law. Cultural Diversity and Law. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 88–89, 203–204. ISBN 978-1-4094-7254-4.

[15] Toktas, Sule; Aras, Bulent (2009). "The EU and Minority Rights in Turkey". Political Science Quarterly. 124 (4): 697–720. doi:10.1002/j.1538-165X.2009.tb00664.x. ISSN 0032-3195. JSTOR 25655744.

[16] Köksal, Yonca (2006). "Minority Policies in Bulgaria and Turkey: The Struggle to Define a Nation". Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. 6 (4): 501–521. doi:10.1080/14683850601016390. ISSN 1468-3857. S2CID 153761516.

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Total population

est. 330,000–450,000
Regions with significant populations
Israel	280,000^[1]
Turkey	14,500 (2022)^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]
United States	16,000^{[citation needed]}
Canada	8,000^{[citation needed]}
Languages
Hebrew (in Israel), Turkish, Judaeo-Spanish, English, French, Greek, Yevanic (extinct), Levantine Arabic^[6] Kurdish^[7]
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Jews, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Spanish Jews, Greek Jews