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NEW BOOK EXAMINES ROOTS OF JEWISH ANTI-GENOCIDE LOBBY
ASBAREZ
Thursday, May 31st, 2012
Model Citizens of the State
Book traces forced Turkification of Jews, their fight against
Anti-Semitism, and Turkish-Jewish Leadership Lobbying against
Recognition of Armenian Genocide
TORONTO-The Zoryan Institute is proud to announce the translation and
publication of a new book by noted author Rifat Bali, Model Citizens of
the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-Party Period (Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group,
2012).
This book provides an expose of the treatment of the Jewish community
in Turkey from 1950 to the present, their fight against anti-Semitism,
the struggle for their constitutional rights, and the attitude of
the Turkish state and society towards these problems.
In a review of the Turkish edition that appeared in the Armenian
Weekly, Turkish journalist Ayse Gunaysu and a member of the Committee
Against Racism and Discrimination of the Human Rights Association
of Turkey (Istanbul branch) since 1995, described the book as
"groundbreaking ... unearthing facts and first-hand accounts that
unmistakably illustrate how the Turkish establishment blackmailed the
leaders of the Jewish community-and through them Jewish organizations
in the United States-to secure their support of the Turkish position
against the Armenians' campaign for genocide recognition . . . The book
also offers rich material about how Turkish diplomats and semi-official
spokesmen of Turkish policies, while carrying out their lobbying
activities, threatened both Israel and the U.S. by indicating that if
the Jewish lobby failed to prevent Armenian initiatives abroad-Turkey
might not be able to guarantee the security of Turkish Jews . . . It
has been a routine practice for Turkish authorities to invariably
deny such threats. However, Bali's industrious work in the archives
reveals first-hand accounts that confirm these allegations."
In explaining his motivation for writing this book, Bali states,
There are a number of facts which triggered my starting to research the
history of the Jews in the Turkish Republic. They can all be summed
up in the fact that I was tired of listening to and reading the rosy
narrative that was repeated over and over by the leaders of the Turkish
Jewish community, as well as by Turkish intellectuals, politicians and
historians. The same narrative was also predominant outside Turkey. I
wanted to discover what was really behind this rhetoric.
Bali details how, despite the attempt of Jewish community leaders
in Istanbul to fit into the mold of the "model" Turkish citizen as
defined by Kemal Ataturk, and regardless of the official government
policy toward the Jewish community, the anti-Semitic attitudes of
the majority Muslim population in Turkish society were ever present.
The book describes how, initially, the Jewish community received
similar treatment by the government of Turkey and had similar problems,
fears and reactions as the Armenian and Greek minorities during the
Single Party period, 1923-1949, to such things as the Capital Tax
Law and policy of Labor Battalions. During the first two decades
of the Multi-Party period, it endured the September 6, 1955 pogrom,
the May 27, 1960 revolution, and the 1971 military coup. All three
minorities suffered equally from these critical events, with loss
of life and property and consequent emigrations to Greece, Israel,
Europe and North America.
Bali explains how a shift in the Turkish state's treatment of its
Jewish citizens started in the late 1960s and early 1970s due to three
pivotal events outside of Turkey: the 1967 Israeli Six-Day War, the
1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and the movement for international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide. He shows that the Turkish
government in the 1970s reversed its policy of prohibiting minorities'
links to outside organizations by encouraging the Jews of Turkey
to connect with American Jewish organizations, once it realized the
importance of American Jewish political lobby groups.
Since then, Turkey has adopted a policy of utilizing the American
Jewish lobby against the Greek lobby to lift the Cyprus related
arms embargo, and against the Armenian lobby to further its genocide
denial policies. Bali details efforts to distance the American Jewish
community from the Armenian community by propagandizing that the
Armenian Genocide is a non-truth, or that whatever may have happened
in 1915 it can not be compared to the Jewish Holocaust and therefore
can not be called genocide, and that Turks have been very tolerant
and friendly to Jews since their expulsion from Spain in 1492.
Bali illustrates that with this new policy, successive Turkish
governments obtained the cooperation of Turkish Jews to convince the
American Jewish lobbies to actively support pro-Turkish measures,
including fighting against Armenian Genocide resolutions in the US
Congress, excluding the Armenian Genocide from the Holocaust Museums
in Washington and Los Angeles, prohibiting papers on the Armenian
Genocide from being presented at Israeli Holocaust conferences,
prohibiting the showing of Armenian Genocide related movies in US
and Israel, etc. The tactics used by Turkish governments included
financial assistance, economic concessions and other privileges,
but also veiled threats that lack of cooperation by the Jewish lobby,
the State of Israel, or Turkish-Jewish leaders would jeopardize the
safety and economic well-being of the Jews in Turkey.
When asked about the possible effect his research could have,
Bali answers,
I do not believe that the book will have any sort of negative impact
on Israeli-Turkish and/or Turkish-Jewish relations. Real politics
and strategic concerns always dominate and even embellish past history.
However I hope that at last the English-speaking public will have
the opportunity to read the "real" story of Turkish-Jewish relations
instead of an embellished one.
In documenting the Turkish state's manipulation of its vulnerable
Jewish minority and their acquiescence, this book serves as a
valuable case study of how Realpolitik in domestic politics and
foreign relations distorts the truth and how coercion by the powerful
contributes to the violation of collective human rights. It will be of
interest to academics and students of non-Muslim minorities in Turkey,
political lobbyists in America, Israeli policy-makers, as well as to
the Jewish, Greek and Armenian communities around the world.
Rifat N. Bali, born in 1948 in Istanbul, is an independent scholar
specializing in the history of Turkish Jews and an associate
member of the Alberto-Benveniste Center for Sephardic Studies and
the Sociocultural History of the Jews (Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes/CNRS/Universite Paris-Sorbonne). He is the winner of the
Alberto Benveniste Research Award for 2009 for his publications on
Turkish Jewry.
The Zoryan Institute is the parent organization of the International
Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, which runs an annual,
accredited university program on the subject and is co-publisher
of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal in
partnership with the International Association of Genocide Scholars
and the University of Toronto Press. It is the first non-profit,
international center devoted to the research and documentation
of contemporary issues with a focus on Genocide, Diaspora and
Armenia. For more information please contact the Zoryan Institute by
email [email protected] or telephone 416-250-9807
ASBAREZ
Thursday, May 31st, 2012
Model Citizens of the State
Book traces forced Turkification of Jews, their fight against
Anti-Semitism, and Turkish-Jewish Leadership Lobbying against
Recognition of Armenian Genocide
TORONTO-The Zoryan Institute is proud to announce the translation and
publication of a new book by noted author Rifat Bali, Model Citizens of
the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-Party Period (Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group,
2012).
This book provides an expose of the treatment of the Jewish community
in Turkey from 1950 to the present, their fight against anti-Semitism,
the struggle for their constitutional rights, and the attitude of
the Turkish state and society towards these problems.
In a review of the Turkish edition that appeared in the Armenian
Weekly, Turkish journalist Ayse Gunaysu and a member of the Committee
Against Racism and Discrimination of the Human Rights Association
of Turkey (Istanbul branch) since 1995, described the book as
"groundbreaking ... unearthing facts and first-hand accounts that
unmistakably illustrate how the Turkish establishment blackmailed the
leaders of the Jewish community-and through them Jewish organizations
in the United States-to secure their support of the Turkish position
against the Armenians' campaign for genocide recognition . . . The book
also offers rich material about how Turkish diplomats and semi-official
spokesmen of Turkish policies, while carrying out their lobbying
activities, threatened both Israel and the U.S. by indicating that if
the Jewish lobby failed to prevent Armenian initiatives abroad-Turkey
might not be able to guarantee the security of Turkish Jews . . . It
has been a routine practice for Turkish authorities to invariably
deny such threats. However, Bali's industrious work in the archives
reveals first-hand accounts that confirm these allegations."
In explaining his motivation for writing this book, Bali states,
There are a number of facts which triggered my starting to research the
history of the Jews in the Turkish Republic. They can all be summed
up in the fact that I was tired of listening to and reading the rosy
narrative that was repeated over and over by the leaders of the Turkish
Jewish community, as well as by Turkish intellectuals, politicians and
historians. The same narrative was also predominant outside Turkey. I
wanted to discover what was really behind this rhetoric.
Bali details how, despite the attempt of Jewish community leaders
in Istanbul to fit into the mold of the "model" Turkish citizen as
defined by Kemal Ataturk, and regardless of the official government
policy toward the Jewish community, the anti-Semitic attitudes of
the majority Muslim population in Turkish society were ever present.
The book describes how, initially, the Jewish community received
similar treatment by the government of Turkey and had similar problems,
fears and reactions as the Armenian and Greek minorities during the
Single Party period, 1923-1949, to such things as the Capital Tax
Law and policy of Labor Battalions. During the first two decades
of the Multi-Party period, it endured the September 6, 1955 pogrom,
the May 27, 1960 revolution, and the 1971 military coup. All three
minorities suffered equally from these critical events, with loss
of life and property and consequent emigrations to Greece, Israel,
Europe and North America.
Bali explains how a shift in the Turkish state's treatment of its
Jewish citizens started in the late 1960s and early 1970s due to three
pivotal events outside of Turkey: the 1967 Israeli Six-Day War, the
1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and the movement for international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide. He shows that the Turkish
government in the 1970s reversed its policy of prohibiting minorities'
links to outside organizations by encouraging the Jews of Turkey
to connect with American Jewish organizations, once it realized the
importance of American Jewish political lobby groups.
Since then, Turkey has adopted a policy of utilizing the American
Jewish lobby against the Greek lobby to lift the Cyprus related
arms embargo, and against the Armenian lobby to further its genocide
denial policies. Bali details efforts to distance the American Jewish
community from the Armenian community by propagandizing that the
Armenian Genocide is a non-truth, or that whatever may have happened
in 1915 it can not be compared to the Jewish Holocaust and therefore
can not be called genocide, and that Turks have been very tolerant
and friendly to Jews since their expulsion from Spain in 1492.
Bali illustrates that with this new policy, successive Turkish
governments obtained the cooperation of Turkish Jews to convince the
American Jewish lobbies to actively support pro-Turkish measures,
including fighting against Armenian Genocide resolutions in the US
Congress, excluding the Armenian Genocide from the Holocaust Museums
in Washington and Los Angeles, prohibiting papers on the Armenian
Genocide from being presented at Israeli Holocaust conferences,
prohibiting the showing of Armenian Genocide related movies in US
and Israel, etc. The tactics used by Turkish governments included
financial assistance, economic concessions and other privileges,
but also veiled threats that lack of cooperation by the Jewish lobby,
the State of Israel, or Turkish-Jewish leaders would jeopardize the
safety and economic well-being of the Jews in Turkey.
When asked about the possible effect his research could have,
Bali answers,
I do not believe that the book will have any sort of negative impact
on Israeli-Turkish and/or Turkish-Jewish relations. Real politics
and strategic concerns always dominate and even embellish past history.
However I hope that at last the English-speaking public will have
the opportunity to read the "real" story of Turkish-Jewish relations
instead of an embellished one.
In documenting the Turkish state's manipulation of its vulnerable
Jewish minority and their acquiescence, this book serves as a
valuable case study of how Realpolitik in domestic politics and
foreign relations distorts the truth and how coercion by the powerful
contributes to the violation of collective human rights. It will be of
interest to academics and students of non-Muslim minorities in Turkey,
political lobbyists in America, Israeli policy-makers, as well as to
the Jewish, Greek and Armenian communities around the world.
Rifat N. Bali, born in 1948 in Istanbul, is an independent scholar
specializing in the history of Turkish Jews and an associate
member of the Alberto-Benveniste Center for Sephardic Studies and
the Sociocultural History of the Jews (Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes/CNRS/Universite Paris-Sorbonne). He is the winner of the
Alberto Benveniste Research Award for 2009 for his publications on
Turkish Jewry.
The Zoryan Institute is the parent organization of the International
Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, which runs an annual,
accredited university program on the subject and is co-publisher
of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal in
partnership with the International Association of Genocide Scholars
and the University of Toronto Press. It is the first non-profit,
international center devoted to the research and documentation
of contemporary issues with a focus on Genocide, Diaspora and
Armenia. For more information please contact the Zoryan Institute by
email [email protected] or telephone 416-250-9807