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Orthodox pilgrimage to the grave of Kabbalah rabbi buried in Istanbul picks up after COVID slump
ISTANBUL (JTA) — Dozens of Orthodox Jews gathered on a hill overlooking the Bosphorus Strait.
Above them, guarding the hilltop, stood a Turkish military base, and below sat the swanky Istanbul neighborhood of Ortaköy. Dominating the view was the 15th of July Martyrs Bridge, which connects Europe and Asia. On the Asian side of the Strait loomed the massive Çamlica Mosque.
None of those sites were of interest to the crowd, however. The hill also contains one of Istanbul’s main Jewish cemeteries, and those gathered — who came from Turkey, the United States and Israel — were there to pay their respects on the yahrzeit, or death anniversary, of Rabbi Naphtali HaKohen Katz, an influential and prolific 17th-century rabbi who was devoted to Jewish mysticism.
Pilgrimages like this one, made by Orthodox groups of varying sizes to the grave sites of similarly revered Jewish figures across Europe, are far from uncommon and have spawned a cottage travel industry. Among the largest and most publicized is the annual pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, which brings tens of thousands to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov each Rosh Hashanah (not on the anniversary of his death). Another involves the grave of Rabbi Elimelech Weisbaum, an early Hasidic leader, in Lizhensk, Poland, in the early spring.
(David I. Klein)
Yitzhak Friedman, a Hasidic Jew from Lakewood, New Jersey, who is currently studying in Israel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he and a few friends used the opportunity of Katz’s yahrzeit to rationalize a short trip to Istanbul.
“It was cheap tickets, we heard a lot of great things, so I had a nice jump over for two days,” he said.
Another group of Orthodox women from Israel said they had planned their trip similarly to coincide with the “hilulah” — using the Hebrew word for such a pilgrimage.
Though the pilgrimage to Uman has become a rowdy days-long affair, during which the influx of Orthodox Jews rent out most of the small city’s available apartments and hotel rooms, other pilgrimages, such as the one to Katz’s grave, have a more quiet and introspective atmosphere. The crowd on Tuesday took breaks from praying to eat at the cemetery’s synagogue, passing around whiskey and snacks.
Friedman said that he has made several similar journeys in the past year alone, including to Dynow, Poland, to the grave of Reb Tzvi Elimelech, another early Hasidic leader. He also spent more than 30 hours traveling to war-torn Ukraine to spend Rosh Hashanah in Uman, a practice that was strongly discouraged by both Israeli and Ukrainian rabbinic leaders this year.
The Jewish cemetery where Katz is buried offers a hilltop view of the city. (David I. Klein)
Friedman said he had heard that a visit to Katz’s grave had helped people with various things, from finding “the right match” to having kids have kids to being cured from a sickness. He asked simply for “happiness” in his prayers.
He also attributed some of the effects of the grave to the fact that it is visited less than the one in Uman.
“It’s known that a tzaddik that very few people come to, his powers are much bigger,” Friedman said.
Another of the pilgrims, a Hasidic man from the Doroger sect in Bnei Brak, Israel, explained that he was a distant descendent of Katz, and that, though he was coming for the first time, he came to accompany his father who had been making the trip for 50 years.
Katz was born in 1649, in what is today Ostrovo, Ukraine, and at the age of 14 he was captured and sold into slavery by Tatars, a Turkic muslim group in Crimea and other parts of Southern Ukraine. But he escaped years later and returned to Ostrovo to become the community’s rabbi, later transferring to Posen in modern-day Poland, where he became a scholar of Kabbalistic literature.
But his struggles would not end with the Tatars. Later in life, Katz was called to Frankfurt, in today’s Germany, to serve the community there. When a fire broke out in the city in 1711, he was accused of using kabbalistic charms to stop it from being extinguished by natural means and imprisoned by the local leadership.
Upon his release, he fled to Prague — where he quarreled with another Kabbalah teacher devoted to Shabbetai Zevi, a false messiah — and later Wroclaw.
In past years, as many as 300 people at a time have visited the Istanbul cemetery. (David I. Klein)
After a life filled with struggle in Europe, Katz tried to emigrate to the holy land but only made it as far as Constantinople, where he died in 1718, and was buried by the local Jewish community in the Ortaköy Cemetery.
Ever since, the grave has been a site of pilgrimage, explained Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, an Istanbul rabbi affiliated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement — and another distant descendent of Katz’s — who helped in the restoration of the grave in 2005.
“Throughout the ages some great rabbis have allegedly made the pilgrimage,” Chitrik said, including the Baal Shem Tov — the founder of the Hasidic Judaism — Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and others.
“I have accompanied great rabbis who came anonymously to pray at his grave,” Chitrik added. “Some fly in for a day on private jets and leave.”
While some people come throughout the year, the most popular time to come is Katz’s yahrzeit, the 24th of Tevet on the Hebrew calendar. In past years, as many as 300 people came for the occasion, said Albert Elvaşvili, the president of the Ortaköy Jewish community which manages the cemetery.
However, he noted that attendance often rises and falls with the changes in Israeli-Turkish relations, much like general Israeli tourism to Turkey, which reached an all time high this year.
The biggest slump came during the COVID-19 pandemic, with only a handful of pilgrims coming the last two years. Now it seems that the tradition is once more back in force, with several buses of pilgrims from different countries and sects coming throughout the day.
“As relations with Israel and the Jewish people are coming to a better place, I believe there will be many more people coming in, and as Turkey becomes much more attractive for the Jewish and religious traveler, there will be many more opportunities for people to come,” Chitrik said. “Not just to the kever [grave] of Naphtali Katz on the 24th of Tevet, but to Rabbi Chaim Palachi in Izmir, on the 19th of Shevat, next month, and Rabbi Yehudah Rozanes, on the 26th of Nisan, and many other rabbis who are buried here in the important cemeteries of Turkey.”
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The Forverts is on vacation. Here’s how to access our content while we’re away.
From Thursday, Aug. 13, till Friday, Aug. 21, the Forverts will be on vacation.
During this time, you can continue to read our English-language articles here; our Yiddish articles here and our Tidbits column of easy-to-read Yiddish news briefs accompanied by audio here. You can also play Vertl (Yiddish Wordle) or view one of our many videos by clicking on one of the following:
- YIDDISH WORD OF THE DAY: Check out our playlist of Yiddish Word of the Day here.
- OUR COOKING SHOWS: Watch a variety of cooks make all sorts of recipes in Yiddish with English subtitles, including Rukhl Schaechter, Eve Jochnowitz, Sender Glasser, Gitl Schaechter Viswanath and Roza Jaffe here.
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Israel’s enemies say it is anti-Christian. Jewish extremists are helping them make the case
One of the more damaging charges against Israel now circulating in the United States portrays the Jewish state as increasingly hostile to Christianity and Christians. The accusation has acquired considerable prominence in American media, where stories about attacks on clergy, harassment of worshippers, restrictions around Christian holy sites and violence against Christian communities have accumulated into a broader portrait of a country becoming inhospitable to one of the faiths born in the Holy Land.
The Washington Post recently devoted a major article to attacks on Christians in Israel and the government’s lackluster response, while other reporting has focused on Jews spitting at Christian clergy and pilgrims in Jerusalem, vandalism of Christian property and the April assault on a Roman Catholic nun near the Old City.
The nun’s case was particularly appalling: according to the subsequent indictment, a Jewish Israeli man chased the 48-year-old French Catholic sister, pushed her to the ground and kicked her after identifying her as a Christian nun. Israeli police arrested the suspect and prosecutors charged him with an assault motivated by religious hostility.
The Armenian Christians of Jerusalem have become another symbol of the phenomenon. Their community predates almost every modern political dispute over the city, with a continuous presence stretching back some 1,700 years. Yet Armenian clergy and residents have described repeated episodes of spitting, intimidation and abuse.
Israeli media in recent weeks described Israeli teenagers arriving at the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Old City and asking whether Christians were inside because they wanted to spit at them.
Scenes like these travel instantly around the world and provide ready-made material for anyone seeking to portray Israel as a place where Christians are despised. In fact, Israel’s Jewish extremists have no particular beef with Christians – but rather a conflict with, and often a hatred for, Arabs in general, of any religion.
Overall, the incidents are not representative of Christian life inside Israel. About 200,000 Christian citizens lived in the country at the end of 2025, most of them Arab Christians, and the community has continued to grow. Arab Christians have exceptionally high educational attainment and are disproportionately represented in Israeli higher education. Christians serve as judges, diplomats, doctors, academics and public officials, and their churches and institutions form a recognized part of Israeli public life. Moreover, the assault on the Catholic nun produced an arrest and indictment rather than tacit approval, and Israeli authorities regularly proclaim their commitment to Christian worship and the protection of Christian holy places.
Yet a radical Jewish fringe appears determined to furnish Israel’s enemies with the pictures, anecdotes and headlines required to transform an inflammatory accusation into a plausible story. The latest damaging example comes from Taybeh, the last predominantly Christian Palestinian village in the West Bank (and home to its only beer brewery).
Taybeh has endured months of tension and violence. In June, Israeli settlers obstructed Palestinians attempting to extinguish a large fire near the village, according to Palestinian firefighters and a local priest. Residents have complained of arson, vandalism, incursions onto private property and intimidation.
“The settlers can do whatever enters their heads,” said the Rev. Jack Abed of Taybeh’s Greek Orthodox community. “And every now and then we have rioting from settler youth who come into the village. They bring sheep with them to graze in our fields.”
This week the Israeli military responded by closing the village to Israelis, saying the measure followed violent attacks by Israelis in the area and was intended to protect local residents and maintain order.
The order illustrates two realities at once. The Israeli army is using military power to protect a Palestinian Christian community from Israeli Jewish extremists. This tells a very different story from the sweeping claim that the Israeli state has embarked upon a campaign against Christians. At the same time, the necessity of such a measure shows the extent of the problem Israel has permitted to develop.
Indeed, Israel Radio this week reported that there have been 660 cases of “nationalistic crime” by Jews in the West Bank in the first six months of 2026 – a 50 percent increase over the same period last year. The report, citing military sources, said six Palestinians were killed and 140 injured in these attacks. There are rarely long-term arrests and no settlers have been convicted in the deaths.
I recently wrote in these pages about Jewish terrorists in the West Bank after extremists torched two mosques, burned cars and fields and attacked Palestinian motorists. One mosque in Qusra was burned and covered with revenge graffiti; another in Kur was set ablaze.
The violence belongs to a larger pattern of attacks on civilians, destruction of property and vigilante incursions into Palestinian communities. I described this as both a moral failure and a national-security disaster because every such episode creates another security problem for the Israeli soldiers and police who must contain the consequences, while simultaneously providing Hamas, Iran and Israel’s other enemies with propaganda more effective than much of what they could manufacture themselves.
The Christian dimension makes the strategic stupidity even more breathtaking. Israel depends upon deep reservoirs of sympathy among Christians around the world, especially in the United States, where tens of millions of evangelical Christians have provided some of the most consistent political support for the Jewish state. Christian attachment to Israel also extends far beyond evangelical politics to people who regard the survival of ancient Christian communities and access to the holy places of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Galilee as matters of profound spiritual importance.
Every video of an extremist spitting at a priest, every report of an Armenian Christian being harassed and every attack on a Christian Palestinian village chips away at that reservoir of goodwill. These extremists are weakening Israel’s security, staining Judaism and turning potential friends of Israel into skeptics and existing skeptics into enemies.
The military’s action in Taybeh is therefore welcome, and it is also woefully insufficient. Israel’s Oct. 27 election offers the possibility of a different approach. Should Netanyahu be defenestrated and a new government take office, a comprehensive crackdown on Jewish terrorism in the West Bank should rank among its first priorities. The task requires arrests, prosecutions and enforcement rather than declarations of concern after each fresh outrage.
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A Democratic upset in Connecticut — but Israel was not a factor
(JTA) — Luke Bronin scored a decisive victory over longtime Rep. John Larson in Connecticut’s Democratic primary Tuesday, marking another defeat for AIPAC which had backed the 14-term congressman.
The pro-Israel lobby group is increasingly viewed as politically toxic in Democratic primaries across the country, with several progressive candidates notching victories after making opposition to the group a centerpiece of their campaigns.
Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, however, were not at the forefront of the contest in Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District, reflecting a more nuanced picture regarding Democratic voters’ shifting sentiments toward Israel.
Bronin and Larson, the race’s two candidates with more traditionally pro-Israel positions, together won nearly 90% of the vote, with Bronin receiving 53% while Larson received 34%. The two progressive candidates in the race, Jillian Gilchrest and Ruth Fortune, who both accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, finished a distant third and fourth.
Bronin, 46, who has Jewish ancestry on his father’s side, is the former mayor of Hartford and also served in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes. His campaign largely centered on affordability and emphasizing the need for new leadership in the Democratic party.
“If we are going to fix this mess that we are in, we need to build a Democratic Party that is bringing a whole new energy to this fight,” Bronin told supporters following his victory.
Israel was not entirely absent from the campaign. Larson, who first took office in 1999, split with Bronin during a primary debate last month when Larson defended his recent vote in support of U.S. military aid to Israel.
“Yes, I voted in favor of making sure that Israel, our ally, is going to get the aid from the United States that it needs. But the Palestinians need humanitarian aid, and Donald Trump has got to enforce the law,” Larson said.
Bronin pushed back at Larson, replying, “Trusting Donald Trump to do the right thing is a mind-blowing example of putting hope over all of the evidence in front of us.”
While Larson had long supported Israel during his tenure in Congress, he has been critical of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza and treatment of Palestinians and vocally opposed the United States’ war in Iran.
Bronin, meanwhile, has said he is against taxpayer money going toward funding offensive military aid to Israel, though he supports “defenses for civilians that protect civilian life against rockets and missiles and drones.”
“I think it’s hugely important that Israel exists as a safe, secure homeland for the Jewish people,” Bronin said when asked about his views on Israel on The Lisa Wexler Show in May. He also spoke out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explaining that the premier had “done enormous damage to Israel’s security, Israel’s standing in the world,” adding that “we have an obligation as a country to say what’s happening is not okay.”
Bronin slightly outraised Larson on the campaign trail, receiving roughly $3.1 million largely from individual donations from billionaires and large firms, while Larson received $2.7 million and relied more on donations from PACs, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Larson received roughly $120,000 in AIPAC-linked donations during the campaign cycle, according to the campaign finance database Open Secrets.
Bronin will now face Republican Amy Chai, a physician and mental health advocate, in the general election for the state’s first congressional district. The district, which spans Bristol, Hartford and Torrington, is home to 27,800 Jews, representing 3.9% of the total population, according to the Berman Jewish Data Bank.
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