Uncategorized
In Turkey, a festival revives a jewel of the Sephardic world and aims to break stereotypes
IZMIR, Turkey (JTA) — Prague has the dubious honor of being chosen by Adolf Hitler to be a record of what he hoped would be the vanquished Jews of Europe. The Nazis left many of the city’s synagogues and Jewish sites relatively intact, intending to showcase them as the remnants of an extinct culture.
That has made Prague a popular tourist destination for both Jewish travelers and others interested in Jewish history since the fall of the Iron Curtain: the city provides an uncommon look into the pre-war infrastructure of Ashkenazi Europe.
Could Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, become a Sephardic version, in terms of history and tourism? That’s the goal for Nesim Bencoya, director of the Izmir Jewish Heritage project.
The city, once known in Greek as Smyrna, has had a Jewish presence since antiquity, with early church documents mentioning Jews as far back as the second century AD. Like elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, though, its community grew exponentially with the influx of Sephardic Jews who came after their expulsion from Spain.
At its peak, the city was home to around 30,000 Jews and was the hometown of Jewish artists, writers and rabbis — from the esteemed Pallache and Algazii rabbinical families, to the musician Dario Marino, to the famously false messiah, Shabbetai Zevi, whose childhood home still stands in Izmir today.
Today, fewer than 1,300 remain. The establishment of the state of Israel, coupled with a century of economic and political upheaval, led to the immigration of the majority of Turkish Jewry.
“From the 17th century, Izmir was a center for Sephardic Jewry,” Bencoya told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We can’t recreate that, but we cannot forget that either.”
Izmir is located on Turkey’s Aegean coast. (David I. Klein)
Celebrating in the former Jewish quarter
Bencoya, who is in his late 60s, was born in Izmir but spent most of his adult life in Israel, where he led the Haifa Cinematheque, but he returned to Izmir 13 years ago to helm the heritage project, which has worked to highlight the the culture and history of Izmir’s Jewish community.
Over nine days in December that included the week of Hanukkah, thousands attended the annual Sephardic culture festival that he has organized since 2018. The festival included concerts of Jewish and Ladino music, traditional food tastings, lectures on Izmir’s Jewish community, and — since it coincided with Hanukkah and also a Shabbat — both a menorah lighting ceremony and havdalah ceremony were conducted with explanations from Izmir’s leading cantor, Nesim Beruchiel.
This year’s festival marked a turning point: it was the first in which organizers were able to show off several of the centuries-old synagogues that the project — with funding from the European Union and the local municipality — has been restoring.
The synagogues, most of which are clustered around a street still called Havra Sokak (havra being the Turkish spelling of the Hebrew word chevra, or congregation) represent a unique piece of cultural heritage.
Nesim Bencoya speaks from his office next to the restored Sinyora Synagogue in Izmir. (David I. Klein)
Once upon a time, the street was the heart of the Jewish quarter or “Juderia,” but today it is right in the middle of Izmir’s Kemeralti Bazaar, a bustling market district stretching over 150 acres where almost anything can be bought and sold. On Havra Sokak, the merchants hock fresh fruits, and hopefully fresher fish. One street to the south one can find all manner of leather goods; one to the north has markets for gold, silver and other precious metals; one to the west has coffee shops. In between them all are other shops selling everything from crafts to tchotchkes to kitchenware to lingerie.
Several mosques and a handful of churches dot the area, but the synagogues revive a unique character of the district that had been all but lost.
“The synagogues here were built under the light of Spain. But in Spain today, there are only two major historic synagogues, Toledo and Cordoba, and they are big ones. You don’t have smaller ones. Here we have six on one block, built with the memory of what was there by those who left Spain,” Bencoya said.
Those synagogues have been home to major events in Jewish history — such as when Shabbetei Zvi broke into Izmir’s Portuguese Synagogue one Sabbath morning, drove out his opponents and declared himself the messiah (he cultivated a large following but was later imprisoned and forced to convert to Islam). The synagogue, known in Turkish as Portekez, was among those restored by the project.
Today, only two of Izmir’s synagogues are in regular use by its Jewish community, but the others that were restored are now available as exhibition and event spaces.
Educating non-Jews
Hosting the festival within Izmir’s unique synagogues has an additional purpose, since the overwhelming majority of the attendees were not Jewish.
“Most of the people who come to the festival have never been to a synagogue, maybe a small percentage of them have met a Jew once in their lives,” Bencoya said.
That’s particularly important in a country where antisemitic beliefs are far from uncommon. In a 2015 study by the Anti-Defamation League, 71% of respondents from Turkey believe in some antisemitic stereotypes.
The festival included concerts of Jewish and Ladino music, traditional food tastings and lectures on Izmir’s Jewish community.(David I. Klein)
“This festival is not for Jewish people to know us, but for non-Jews,” Bencoya said. Now, “Hundreds of Turkish Muslim people have come to see us, to listen to our holidays and taste what we do.”
Kayra Ergen, a native of Izmir who attended a Ladino concert and menorah lighting event at the end of the festival, told JTA that until a year ago, he had no idea how Jewish Izmir once was.
“I know that Anatolia is a multicultural land, and also Turkey is, but this religion, by which I mean Jewish people, left this place a long time ago because of many bad events. But it’s good to remember these people, and their roots in Izmir,” Ergen said. “This is so sad and lame to say out loud, but I didn’t know about this — that only 70 years ago, 60% of this area here in Konak [the district around Kemeralti] was Jewish. Today I believe only 1,300 remain. This is not good. But we must do whatever we can and this festival is a good example of showing the love between cultures.”
“I think it’s good that we’re respecting each other in here,” said Zeynep Uslu, another native of Izmir. “A lot of different cultures and a lot of different people. It’s good that we’re together here celebrating something so special.”
Izmir’s history as a home for minorities has not been all rosy. At the end of the Ottoman period, the city was around half Greek, a tenth Jewish and a tenth Armenian, while the remainder were Turkish Muslims and an assortment of foreigners. In the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922 — remembered in Turkey as the Turkish War of Independence — the Greek and Armenian quarters of Izmir were burned to the ground after the Turkish army retook the city from the Greek forces, killing tens of thousands. A mass exodus of the survivors followed, but the Jewish and Muslim portions of the city were largely unharmed.
Izmir is not the only city in Turkey which has seen its synagogues restored in recent years. Notable projects are being completed in Edirne, a city on the Turkish western border near Bulgaria, and Kilis, on its southeastern border near Syria. Unlike Izmir, though, no Jews remain in either of those cities today, and many have accused the project of being a tool for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to assuage accusations of antisemitism, without actually dealing with living Jews.
Losing Ladino and a ‘quiet’ mindset
Bencoya lamented that he is among the last generation for whom Ladino — the Judeo-Spanish language traditionally spoken by Sephardic Jews, but only spoken by tens of thousands today — was at least a part of his childhood.
“When you lose language, it’s not only technical, it’s not only vocabulary, it’s a whole world and a way of thinking,” Bencoya said.
The project is challenging a local Jewish mentality as well. Minority groups in Izmir, especially Jews, “have for a long time preferred not to be seen, not to be felt,” according to Bencoya.
That mindset has been codified in the Turkish Jewish community’s collective psyche in the form of a Ladino word, “kayedes,” which means something along the lines of “shhh,” “be quiet,” or “keep your head down.”
“This is the exact opposite that I want to do with this festival — to be felt, to raise awareness of my being,” Bencoya said.
The Bikur Holim Synagogue is one of the few still functioning in Izmir. (David I. Klein)
One way of doing that, he added, was having the festival refer to the community’s identity “as Yahudi and not Musevi!” Both are Turkish words that refer to Jews: the former having the same root as the English word Jew — the Hebrew word Yehuda or Judea — while the latter means “follower of Moses.”
“Yahudi, Musevi, Ibrani [meaning Hebrew, in Turkish] — they all mean the same thing, but in Turkey, they say Musevi because it sounds nicer,” Bencoya said. “To Yahudi there are a lot of negative superlatives — dirty Yahudi, filthy Yahudi, and this and that. So I insist on saying that I am Yahudi, because people have a lot of pre-judgements about the name Yahudi. So if you have prejudgements about me, let’s open them and talk about them.”
“I am not so romantic that I can eliminate all antisemitism, but if I can eliminate some of the prejudgements, then I can live a little more at peace,” he added.
So far, he feels the festival is a successful first step.
“The non-Jewish community of Izmir is fascinated,” Bencoya said. “If you look on Facebook and Instagram, they are talking about it, they are fighting over tickets, which sell out almost immediately.”
Now, he is only wondering how next year he will be able to fit more people into the small and aged synagogues.
“For Turkey, [the festival] is very important because Turkey can be among the enlightened nations of the world, only by being aware of the differences between groups of people, such as Jews, Christians, others, and Muslims,” he said.
—
The post In Turkey, a festival revives a jewel of the Sephardic world and aims to break stereotypes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Tucker Carlson Calls Trump a ‘Slave to Israel’ as Feud Escalates
Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson repudiated US President Donald Trump as a “slave to Israel” in his morning newsletter on Monday, the latest rhetorical escalation in a growing public feud between the controversial podcaster and the commander-in-chief.
“President Trump is a slave to Israel,” Carlson wrote in his newsletter.
Carlson lambasted Trump for comments he made in a Sunday interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, in which the president condemned the Iranian regime for its reluctance to accept American conditions in ending the US-Israeli war with Iran. Carlson further criticized Trump for maintaining consistent communication with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the ongoing negotiation efforts with Iranian officials and accused the White House of presenting Tehran with an unfavorable set of demands.
“Reporting that uncomfortable fact brings us great pain, but it is the tragic truth. This weekend alone, America’s leader parroted Israeli talking points on Fox News,” Carlson wrote.
In the Fox News interview, Trump identified Iran’s unwillingness to abandon its nuclear program as the key sticking-point in negotiations between the two nations. Trump warned that Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would “use it on Israel and the Middle East.” Trump also lauded the “incredible partnership” between the US and Israel.
Carlson went on to criticize Trump for having purportedly “continued his daily ritual of reporting war updates to Benjamin Netanyahu as an employee does to their manager,” seemingly implying that the US was waging war with Iran under Israel’s direction.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren recently said the argument that Trump had been pushed into war by Israel ignored decades of Iranian hostility and repeated attacks on Americans.
“Every day since 1979, the Iranian regime swore to destroy the United States and, in pursuit of that pledge, sought to develop strategic weapons while committing hundreds of acts of war against Americans,” Oren told The Algemeiner last month. “President Trump did not need to be dragged into defending the American people from this looming threat and certainly not by a purportedly cunning Israeli leader.”
“Suggestions to the contrary … are deeply insulting to the president and patently antisemitic,” he added.
Still, anti-Israel commentators such as Carlson have repeatedly claimed that Israel “dragged” the US into the war with Iran.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Trump administration was providing daily updates to him about the war, noting that, the prior day, US Vice President JD Vance provided “in detail” the latest information on peace talks with Tehran. Critics of Israel immediately framed Netanyahu’s statement as evidence that the US government operates in a position of subservience to Israel, despite the fact that allies regularly maintain consistent lines of communication during wartime.
In his newsletter, Carlson said the White House “deployed JD Vance to present Iranian negotiators with peace demands everyone knows they would never accept.”
The White House has outlined a wide-ranging set of priorities in negotiations with Iran in exchange for winding down military operations, including that Tehran cease uranium enrichment efforts, reopen the Strait of Hormuz without installing any toll booths, implement restrictions on its ballistic missiles program, and end support for terrorist proxy organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Carlson’s comments came after Trump described the podcaster, one of his longtime supporters turned outspoken critic, as unintelligent.
“Tucker’s a low-IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” Trump said last Tuesday in an interview with New York Post national security reporter Caitlin Doornbos when asked about Carlson’s condemnations of his Easter message promising massive destruction on Iran.
“He calls me all the time; I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him,” Trump said of Carlson. “I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”
Two days later, Trump lambasted Carlson as well as other far-right podcasters critical of his support for Israel and tough stance on Iran as “stupid” people who support the regime in Tehran.
Carlson’s comments also came after a Newsmax interview in which he also called Trump a “slave” to Israel.
“I’ve always liked Trump and still feel sorry for him, as I do for all slaves,” the former Fox News host said during the Friday interview, adding that Trump “can’t make his own decisions” and that he is “hemmed in by other forces.”
During an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Carlson seemingly doubled down on his suggestion that Trump is operating at the behest of the Jewish state, saying, “I don’t think it is as simple as ‘he is under the control of Netanyahu,’ but you could certainly summarize it that way and you wouldn’t be totally inaccurate.”
Following 21 hours of negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, last week, Vance announced that ceasefire discussions broke down after Iran refused to agree to Washington’s set of demands.
Carlson, one of the most popular conservative pundits in the US, has reinvented himself as a preeminent critic of Israel in the years following his unceremonious firing from Fox News.
Since launching his podcast, Carlson has relentlessly condemned Israel, issuing a series of blistering and false accusations that the country oppresses Christians, exerts immense influence over US politicians, and has committed “genocide” in Gaza. The provocateur has accused Israel of killing tens of thousands of children in Gaza “on purpose” without providing any evidence.
Carlson has also hosted a seemingly unremitting parade of anti-Israel figures on his podcast while rejecting offers by pro-Israel figures to appear as guests. He especially drew backlash for conducting a friendly interview with fellow podcaster Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite and Holocaust denier.
Carlson’s anti-Israel career pivot has drawn the ire of many of his former fans, including US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). In public remarks, Cruz accused Carlson of spearheading efforts to normalize antisemitism within the Republican Party and has called on fellow Republicans to distance themselves from the podcaster.
Further, Carlson has seen his once-chummy relationship with Trump publicly deteriorate.
The president issued sharp condemnation of Carlson, along with other Israel-critical personalities Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Megyn Kelly, in comments made on Truth Social.
Trump called Carlson a “broken man,” adding that he has “never been the same” since his 2023 firing from Fox News.
“These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be!” Trump added.
The public fallout between Trump and Carlson comes as the pundit has sharpened his criticisms of the president. Last week, Carlson rebuked Trump for purportedly offending Muslims, suggesting that his conduct was unbecoming for a world leader.
Although Carlson’s podcast remains highly popular, his ideological shift seems to have come at the cost of his reputation in the Republican Party. A recent YouGov poll revealed that Carlson’s approval rating within the GOP has cratered, falling from +54 favorability in March 2024 to only +7. This timeline aligns with Carlson’s intensifying attacks on Israel and Republican lawmakers.
Uncategorized
My father was in the Hungarian resistance. Orbán’s defeat reminds us why it mattered
My father resisted the Nazis in Hungary. I thought of him — and how he would have rejoiced — when the Hungarian people voted out Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday, after 16 years of authoritarian rule.
Only a week before Hungarian voters made their choice, the outcome of the elections seemed far from certain. I remember watching in dismay last Tuesday, when Vice President JD Vance flew to Budapest to try to help prop Orbán up. There, he spread the same kind of blood-and-soil nationalism that has haunted the history of Hungary, and helped enable the horrors through which my father lived.
In his campaign rally with Orbán, Vance decried “far-left ideology” as “a shared threat from within that both of our nations face,” adding that its followers “view the very foundations of our shared civilization as illegitimate.” He also said that Orbán had kept Hungary from being “invaded” by immigrants.
The second-highest elected official in the United States, the country that gave so many Jews refuge after the Holocaust, embraced an ethno-nationalist leader who has suggested that Hungary’s “enemy” is a group who “does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”
What would my dad have made of that blatantly antisemitic moment?
In 1943 and 1944, my father operated underground in Budapest and Bucharest. As part of an illegal religious Zionist youth movement, he helped organize rescue efforts for Jews under Nazi rule. He traveled to Hungarian villages, warning Jews of advancing German forces, and helped smuggle Jews from Hungary to Romania and onward to Mandatory Palestine.
My father lived in a time when ideas and rhetoric like those advanced by Orbán and Vance had existential consequences. He resisted a regime that hunted Jews and other minorities, stripped them of rights, and sent them to their deaths. For him, resistance meant survival.
My father risked everything — his safety, his freedom, his life. With Hungary’s model in front of us, all who live under the threat of authoritarianism today must ask: What will we risk?
While our reality is different from my father’s, we are nevertheless on a dangerous path — one we ignore at our peril. Across the globe, antisemitism is on the rise. Democracy, which has safeguarded vulnerable communities from fascism, is under assault.
Hungarians pushed back against rising authoritarianism on Sunday, ousting Orbán in a true feat of resistance. In doing so, they dealt a blow to the network of European far-right leaders who trade in antisemitic tropes and beliefs. And they rebuffed Vance and President Donald Trump — who dispatched Vance to campaign in Hungary, having closely allied himself with Orbán — and an increasingly influential circle of American intellectuals who promote antisemitism-tinged arguments about civilizational decline and hidden elite influence.
How should we respond to this normalization of antisemitic language and imagery?
My father’s story taught me not to take the easy route. It’s tempting to retreat, at least temporarily, into private life, focusing only on our families and communities. We may want to minimize what we see, to convince ourselves it isn’t as bad as it seems. We may grow insular or fatalistic.
But disengagement will only postpone the danger to a later date, leaving us exposed and unprepared. It is the opposite of resistance. My father understood this, and bet on the power of resistance and perseverance.
Real resistance — to authoritarianism, to antisemitism, to the forces that feed both — means using the tools of democracy that are still available to us: voting, organizing, and speaking out to hold leaders accountable. It means using our power as citizens to stand behind our values — just as the citizens of Hungary did yesterday.
Real resistance means rejecting dangerous ideas carried by far-right movements into positions of power, amplified by the highest offices in the land. Those same movements are simultaneously assaulting the very democratic institutions that have made America one of the safest places Jews have ever lived.
Real resistance means standing up when democratic norms are eroded; when Jews and other minority communities are cast as threats; and when governmental institutions employ rhetoric with unmistakable antisemitic resonance — all phenomena that unfolded in Hungary under Orbán, and are unfolding in the U.S. under Trump. It means standing in the way of unchecked power and opposing legislation and policies that limit constitutional liberties and academic freedom. It means strengthening the ties that bind us together — building alliances against all forms of hatred, between communities targeted for their religion, ethnicity, identity or beliefs. It means staying in coalition to fight for a strong democratic future, even when doing so can be uncomfortable.
Orbán, Trump, Vance and their fellow proto-authoritarians have bet that we will ultimately comply. With Orbán’s defeat, they have new reasons to fear that we won’t. That’s as it should be, and my father would be proud.
My father had every chance to escape the Nazis. But after each mission, he came back to rescue more. He never stopped fighting for a better future for his fellow Jews. Neither should we.
The post My father was in the Hungarian resistance. Orbán’s defeat reminds us why it mattered appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Israel Reprimands Spain Over Blowing Up of Netanyahu Effigy
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a press conference after attending a special summit of European Union leaders to discuss transatlantic relations, in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel said on Saturday it had reprimanded Spain‘s most senior diplomat in Tel Aviv over the blowing up of a giant effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Spanish town this week.
The seven-meter (23-foot) figure was packed with 14 kilograms (31 lbs.) of gunpowder in El Burgo, a small town near the southern city of Malaga, in a decades-old ceremony on April 5, its Mayor Maria Dolores Narvaez told local television.
“The appalling antisemitic hatred on display here is a direct result of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government’s systemic incitement,” Israel‘s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on X which highlighted a video clip.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the video.
“The Spanish government is committed to fighting against antisemitism and any form of hate or discrimination. As such we totally reject any insidious allegation which suggests the contrary,” a Spanish Foreign Ministry source said in response.
El Burgo’s Mayor Narvaez said the town has previously used effigies of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the annual event.
Spain has been an outspoken critic of the US and Israeli military campaigns in Iran and Lebanon, despite US threats to punish uncooperative NATO allies.
Spain and Israel have been embroiled in a long-running diplomatic row which began over the Gaza war. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said a Spanish ban on aircraft and ships carrying weapons to Israel from its ports or airspace due to Israel‘s military offensive was antisemitic.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares accused Israel of violating international law and the two-week ceasefire after a massive wave of airstrikes across Lebanon this week. Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire and Israel‘s military was continuing to strike Hezbollah with force.
Sanchez, who has emerged as a leading opponent of the Iran war, has closed Spanish airspace to any aircraft involved in a confrontation he has described as reckless and illegal.
Iran has repeatedly praised Spain in recent weeks for its hostile posture toward the US and Israel.