Prologue: The Long Twilight

Abstract

Demographic decline marks the history of the Jews of Turkey in the twentieth century. The traumatic end of the Ottoman Empire left Jews like other non-Muslims in a vulnerable position in the Turkish republic which occasionally saw violence and discriminatory legislation against them. The rise of the state of Israel led to accusations of foreign allegiance against Jews, especially in Islamic circles. Most Jews eventually took the path of emigration. Those who remained adopted a policy of low profile and official professions of gratitude to Ottomans/Turks for receiving the Sephardi exiles at the end of the fifteenth century. Turkish Jewry is now a demographically endangered remnant community. Its fate has come to parallel the end of Jewish existence in Muslim-majority lands in the twentieth century.