OAJC leader finds warm welcome in Islamic Turkey

By EMILY GOTTFRIED

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As the executive director of the Oregon Area Jewish Committee, I participated in a June 16-26 intercultural visit to Turkey as a guest of the Rosegarden Turkish American Cultural Center.

Eight visitors from Portland were accompanied by two Turkish group leaders on an in-depth tour of many important sites in this country that spans two continents. We also visited non-profit organizations, schools, media outlets and more, meeting with students, teachers and community leaders.

I knew before I visited the country that the vast majority of Turks are Muslim. This immediately became even clearer to me upon hearing the amplified call to worship at 4:30 each morning (and four more calls throughout the day), seeing the numerous minarets in every city and town, and seeing the many, many women who cover their heads with fashionable headscarves when in public.

Though Islam pervades the country, our delegation from Portland learned that Turkey’s government is strictly secular by design. Many of the people that we met with were in favor of a slightly less secular form of government, which would be more like the American version of “freedom of religion.” They objected to the fact that women are not allowed to attend universities in Turkey with their heads covered and that many jobs are not open to women who cover.

Most of the Turkish people that our delegation met were very interested in education and in student success, particularly in the sciences. Many of the schools that our group visited were the top schools in their areas, winning science and language competitions. We were hosted at these schools by parents and teachers, all of whom were educated professionals.

The Turkish hosts at the schools, the non-profits and the media outlets were very pleased to be able to have an intercultural and interfaith exchange with the guests from Oregon. Turkish hospitality was a pervasive element throughout the trip.

I always felt comfortable introducing myself as being Jewish and representing a Jewish organization. Many of the people we met made a particular effort to let me know how they wanted to build better relationships with Jews and with Israel.

This attitude was particularly welcome, considering that several disturbing anti-Semitic incidents have taken place in Turkey in recent years, including simultaneous truck bombings in 2003 that killed nearly 20 people and wounded almost 300 outside two synagogues in Istanbul.

I was also able to meet with leaders of the Jewish community in Istanbul, including Lina Filiba, executive vice president of the Jewish Community of Turkey, and Naim Güleryüz, president of the Jewish Museum of Turkey.

I learned from Filiba that Turkey now has only about 29,000 Jews throughout the whole country. A hundred years ago there were nearly 500,000.

The Jewish Museum in Istanbul focuses on the community at its peak. It is housed in a beautiful old synagogue that is sadly no longer used for religious services.

I would go back to visit Turkey in a heartbeat. I believe that my visit was an appropriate extension of the work I do in Portland through the Oregon Area Jewish Committee.

The warm welcome our group received everywhere we went was truly wonderful. The building of relationships between the Americans on our trip and the Turks we spent time with is a small but important step for improved relations between our countries. And certainly planting a few more seeds of positive interfaith relationships in Turkey can only be a good thing.