Why is this project? Innovative Work for The Turkish Jewish Community
Generation Next project, Journey to our Roots, started in 2008 within the precious support of PAEIDEA- The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden,The ROI – Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation aimed to organize Jewish cultural tours in Turkey to revitalize Turkish Jewish life, to preserve Jewish-Turkish heritage and increase Jewish tourism to Turkey. Journey to our Roots aims to attract American, European and Israeli tourists in order to make them aware of Turkish-Jewish history’s uniqueness, in terms of their Jewish identities and the connection to their roots. Jewish life in Turkey is vanishing; there is a complete history and heritage of Turkish Jewry that will be gone in a few years if nothing is done. As part of our history, we must revitalize community buildings, synagogues and Jewish life in these cities. Every tourist participating in Journey to our Roots will take part in this revival as well as the cultural and economic strengthening of the Jewish community
The Jewish Community in Turkey has a long and rich history that stretches back some 2000 years to Roman times when Jews left Jerusalem and dispersed throughout the world. The beginnings of the Jewish settlement in Anatolia are believed to belong to the 3rd century BCE, when Jews from Babylonia and other countries were encouraged to settle in the city of Sardis by the Seleucid King Antiochus III (223-187 BCE). The ancient synagogue ruins have been founded all over Turkey and mostly in Anatolia.
Did you ever heard that the Jewish community in Cappadocia is mentioned 15 times in the Talmud ? The word Sefarad, which today we use for Spain, is actually the name of the city Sardes…
Closed to worship in 1960 and leased to a manufacturing plant, Abudaram Synagogue, known as Parmakkapi Synagogue reopened its doors after a long time for morning prayer. Numerous members of Turkish Jewish Community attended the Tefilla. On Sunday morning, April…
On Saturday evening April 1st, with the contributions of Besiktas Municipality and the presence of Besiktas Mayor Murat Hazinedar, Semel Karmiel’s dance performance was put on stage at Mustafa Kemal Cultural Center. This was the 12th consecutive year Semes Karmiel…
Since 1923, when the Turkish Republic was established, Jews have been exposed to systematic discrimination and campaigns of forced Turkification and Islamization. The Turkish newspaper Milliyet published a news report on March 20 entitled “Synagogues from the era of Byzantium…
The exhibition focusing on the tragic life story of Anne Frank who lost her life at a Nazi concentration camp and the rise of Nazi regime that led to Holocaust is the opening event of various upcoming events that will…
The objects that will be consigned to museum collection will change in a rotating system thus allowing for more historic objects and documents to be unearthed. The first documents to be displayed at this unit are the notebooks that belonged…
During visit to Tel Aviv, Recep Tayyip Erdogan´s tourism minister says Turkey misses its Israeli tourists, and expects their number to double this year. Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism Nabi Avcı said Tuesday that his country misses its Israeli…
It was a couple of months ago, I took a French couple who bluntly displayed “Islamophobic” behaviors on a Sultanahmet tour. Not knowing I was a Jew, after barely saying “good morning”, they started telling me how the sound of…
