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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.
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The post In Turkey, a festival revives a jewel of the Sephardic world and aims to break stereotypes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Temple Israel was my home — and what I learned there can help us get through this difficult moment
Temple Israel has long been a staple of the Detroit Jewish community — and in many ways, it has been a cornerstone of my own life. My connection to that synagogue stretches back to my earliest musical memories.
My first voice teacher, in 8th grade, was the wife of Temple Israel’s cantor, Neil Michaels. As a teenager, I sang in their choir, the Teen T’filah Team, where I was first exposed to the music of the Reform movement and where I first experienced the use of instrumentation in services. It was there that I first learned the song Kehilah Kedoshah by Dan Nichols, a piece I now frequently sing with our own East End Temple choir. As a high school student, I even sang alongside the cantors there during High Holiday services. Throughout childhood I remained close with all three of Rabbi Paul Yedwab’s children, as we attended school together, were in theatre together, and travelled to Israel together.
Temple Israel is where my mother studied for her adult bat mitzvah which was officiated by Rabbi Harold Loss. And it was Temple Israel that took me on my first and second trips to Israel — experiences that profoundly changed the trajectory of my life, deepening and reframing my relationship with Judaism, and ultimately inspiring me to devote my life to the Jewish people. I still vividly remember our 2010 Teen Mission to Israel, led by Rabbi Josh Bennett. On that trip, I realized something transformative: that clergy could be more than just symbolic exemplars of a community, but also fun, adventurous, relatable, deeply present in the lives of young people, and powerful influences on their willingness to engage in Jewish life.
That trip had an unquantifiable impact on me. It was on that drive home from the airport that I decided Judaism needed to once again become a more central part of my life. Two weeks later, for my senior year of high school, I made what felt at the time like a radical decision: I transferred from West Bloomfield High School to the Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit (now the Frankel Jewish Academy).
During that year, I began seriously exploring whether I might pursue a career in the cantorate. I arranged an off-campus internship that allowed me to compare and contrast the life and role of the cantor in both the Conservative and Reform movements. Once a week, I studied privately with Cantor Meir Finkelstein at my family’s Conservative congregation, Shaarey Zedek, and another day each week, I studied with Cantor Michael Smolash at Temple Israel. Aside from my internship, my favorite class that year was a course called Denominational Differences, co-taught by rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements — including two of my own beloved rabbis, Aaron Starr (Shaarey Zedek) and Josh Bennett (Temple Israel). In fact, that very subject eventually became the topic of my master’s thesis in cantorial school.
Needless to say, it is unlikely that I would be standing here today as your cantor were it not for the profound influence that the Metro Detroit Jewish community—and Temple Israel in particular—had on me throughout my childhood.
It is for this reason that yesterday’s news struck me so deeply. Learning of antisemitic attacks in the news is always painful and disturbing. Yet, as the frequency of these attacks across the globe becomes evermore pervasive, it’s difficult not to become slightly jaded or emotionally hardened — a natural coping mechanism to deal with ongoing trauma. People are not meant to live in a state of perpetual anxiety and hypervigilance.
But yesterday’s attack on Temple Israel shook me to my core. It is impossible not to experience antisemitism differently when it touches your own community. Realizing that one of my childhood synagogues was the target of a terrorist attack feels surreal. We know intellectually that terrible things happen in the world — but we rarely expect them to happen to us. We must, therefore, remain forever mindful that tragedy is always personal to someone.
Even amid this frightening event, I am profoundly grateful for the brave security personnel at Temple Israel — especially their director of security, Danny — who quite literally put his life on the line to protect everyone inside the building, including the 106 preschool children and teachers who were in class at the time. We pray for the swift and complete physical and emotional healing of those officers, and we hold them in our hearts. It is truly miraculous that no civilians were injured during this attack. And the outpouring of support from the broader Metro Detroit community has been extraordinary — especially from our non-Jewish friends and neighbors who did not hesitate to help in our time of need.
We are particularly grateful to the Chaldean (Iraqi-Christian) community who opened their homes and businesses to shelter those fleeing the scene. The Chaldean-owned Shenandoah country club, museum, and cultural center across the street immediately welcomed and protected those seeking refuge. The fact that Shenandoah — the largest Chaldean community center in the United States — stands directly across the street from Temple Israel — the largest Reform synagogue in the United States — is no coincidence. It reflects the deep personal and communal ties between our communities.
When I was a student there, West Bloomfield High School was comprised of roughly one-third Jewish and one-fifth Chaldean students. Our communities shared classrooms, neighborhoods, friendships — and often cultural similarities. Both Jews and Chaldeans are Middle Eastern peoples whose identities weave together religion, culture, and ancestry. Both communities carry histories shaped by persecution and resilience. Both place profound emphasis on family, education, and tradition. In fact, back home I became somewhat known as the Chaldean community’s Jewish wedding singer, singing at numerous Chaldean churches as the bride walked down the aisle.
In moments like this, we see those shared bonds revealed in the most powerful of ways. I have no doubt that from this tragic incident something meaningful will emerge: our communities will grow stronger, more resilient, more deeply connected, and even more outspokenly proud of our identities. Hatred seeks to isolate and intimidate, but solidarity, courage, and compassion remind us that we are never alone. When neighbors protect neighbors, when communities stand together in the face of fear, we transform even the darkest moments into opportunities for unity, strength and hope.
Olivia Brodsky is the cantor and co-clergy of East End Temple in Manhattan.
The post Temple Israel was my home — and what I learned there can help us get through this difficult moment appeared first on The Forward.
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California Education Department Sues Oakland School District Over Alleged Refusal to Enact Antisemitism Reforms
Californians protesting outside the Department of Education in Sacramento. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
California is suing one of its own publicly funded school systems, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), accusing its officials of refusing for several years to address antisemitism and protect the civil rights of Jewish children being subjected to abuse by both their peers and teachers.
Filed by the state’s Department of Education on March 5, the complaint alleges that OUSD’s superintendent never followed through on “corrective actions” decreed by the department to correct a hostile environment which produced “multiple complaints of antisemitism.” One of the measures called for issuing a letter to parents that “condemns antisemitism” while outlining OUSD’s efforts to combat it. The state charges that the superintendent, Dr. Denise Saddler, ignored its directive, a legal obligation as a state entity and recipient of public funds.
“No law or regulation grants OUSD the discretion to disregard or delay prompt implementation of the corrective actions mandated,” the complaint says. “Unless this court grants the relief requested, respondent OUSD will continue to fail and refuse to perform its legal duties.”
The lawsuit continues a dispute between the department and OUSD which began last year when, amid a flood of Jewish students leaving the district, the agency found OUSD guilty of antisemitic discrimination which affected both students and staff. In one incident, the district allowed the presentation of a map, prepared in support of Arab American Heritage Month, which did not include Israel. Speaking to The Oaklandside, a local newspaper, in October, an OUSD spokesman admitted that was “an oversight,” but by that time it had already happened twice.
California itself is being sued by a coalition of leading Jewish advocacy organizations over its alleged failing to address “systemic” antisemitic discrimination in K-12 public schools.
Led by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and StandWithUs, the legal action stems from consecutive years of antisemitic abuse perpetrated against Jewish students, parents, and teachers by anti-Zionists at every level of the school system. Court documents shared with The Algemeiner earlier this week revealed new, harrowing accusations of Jews being called “k—kes,” Jewish students being threatened with gang assaults, and K-12 students chanting “F—k the Jews” during anti-Israel demonstrations promoted by faculty.
In one highly disturbing incident described in the legal complaint, fifth graders from the OUSD were filmed by the teacher saying “Another major thing that I’ve learned is that the Jews, the people who took over, basically just stole the Palestinians’ land” and “one thing that’s really surprising to me, and that appeals to me is that the US is helping the Jews.” In another incident, the Oakland Education Association confected a curriculum in which the intifada — which refers to two prolonged periods of terrorism in which Palestinians murdered Israeli civilians — was taught to third graders as a nursery rhyme.
Litigation related to antisemitic incidents in California K-12 schools surged following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, which triggered a barrage of antisemitic hate crimes throughout the US and the world. The list of outrages includes a student group chanting “Kill the Jews” during an anti-Israel protest and partisan activists smuggling far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.
Elsewhere in California, K-12 antisemitism has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment, according to complaints.
In the Berkeley United School District (BUSD), teachers have allegedly used their classrooms to promote antisemitic stereotypes about Israel, weaponizing disciplines such as art and history to convince unsuspecting minors that Israel is a “settler-colonial” apartheid state committing a genocide of Palestinians. While this took place, high level BUSD officials were accused of ignoring complaints about discrimination and tacitly approving hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.
At Berkeley High School, for example, a history teacher forced students to explain why Israel is an apartheid state and screened an anti-Zionist documentary, according to a lawsuit filed in 2024 by the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The teacher allegedly squelched dissent, telling a Jewish student who raised concerns about the content of her lessons that only anti-Zionist narratives matter in her classroom and that any other which argues that Israel isn’t an apartheid state is “laughable.” Elsewhere in the school, an art teacher, whose name is redacted from the complaint for matters of privacy, displayed anti-Israel artworks in his classroom, one of which showed a fist punching through a Star of David.
In October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law which requires the state to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools at a time of rising anti-Jewish hatred across the US. As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the bill confronted Newsom, a Democrat rumored to be interested in running for US president in 2028, with a politically fraught decision, as it aims to limit the extent to which the state’s ideologically charged ethnic studies curricula, supported by progressives and many Democrats, may plant anti-Zionist viewpoints into the minds of the 5.8 million students educated in its public schools.
Newsom, who has since endorsed the false charge that Israel is an “apartheid” state, approved the measure amid these cross currents, paving the way for state officials to proceed with establishing an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially barring antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US Jewish Lawmaker Releases Audio of Antisemitic Death Threat
US Representative Max Miller (R-OH) joins House Republican Study Committee members as they hold a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, July 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
A Jewish member of the US Congress released audio this week of an antisemitic death threat he says his office received, warning that rising hostility toward Jewish public officials is translating into real-world intimidation and violence.
Rep. Max Miller, a Republican who represents Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, posted an 11-second voicemail sent to his congressional office. In the recording, the caller uses antisemitic language and expresses hope that Miller will be violently attacked, invoking stereotypes about Jews and suggesting he deserves to be killed.
“Just for being a Jewish piece of s—t who thinks they own the world, I hope some f—king Arab motherf—ker jumps out of the bushes and cuts off your f—king head,” a man says in the message.
Miller said the threat reflects a broader climate of antisemitism that Jewish leaders and pro-Israel advocates say has intensified since the war between Hamas and Israel began in October 2023.
The congressman, one of the few Jewish Republicans in the House, has said that threats like the voicemail are increasingly common for Jewish lawmakers and contribute to heightened security concerns across Capitol Hill.
Miller has previously faced hostility because of his Jewish identity and support for Israel.
In June 2025, Miller reported that a man displaying a Palestinian flag aggressively confronted him while he was driving in Ohio, shouting “death to Israel,” threatening him and his family, and forcing his vehicle off the road. Authorities later arrested a suspect and charged him with offenses including aggravated menacing and ethnic intimidation.
Miller characterized the incident as an act of antisemitic intimidation and said it underscored the risks Jewish public officials face in an increasingly polarized environment surrounding Israel.
Miller’s decision to release the threatening voicemail this week came the same day that a gunman targeted a synagogue near Detroit, sending shockwaves through Jewish communities across the country.
On Thursday, local and federal authorities say a man rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan before opening fire, prompting a shootout with armed security guards. Authorities said roughly 140 people, including more than 100 children attending a preschool program, were inside the building at the time, but no congregants were harmed due to the rapid response of security personnel. The assailant was killed by the synagogue’s armed security, according to police.
Officials and Jewish organizations described the attack as a stark reminder of the security threats facing Jewish institutions nationwide. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer condemned the violence and warned that rising antisemitism poses a serious danger to Jewish communities.
Miller said he released the audio publicly to draw attention to what he describes as the increasingly hostile climate facing Jewish Americans and pro-Israel leaders.