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FULL PHOTO SERVICES INCLUDING: BLACK & WHITE, ENLARGEMENTS, POSTERS 29175 Northwestern Hwy. at 12 Mile Rd. In Franklin Shopping Plaza 50 FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1990 Natural Cosmetics and MORE! CLASSIFIEDS GET RESULTS! Call The Jewish News 354.6060 Turkey's Sephardic Jews To Celebrate Freedom ELENA NEUMAN Special to The Jewish News S ome historians have suggested that Christopher Colum- bus was a Marrano, a Jew forced to convert to Catholicism in 15th-century Spain, and that he set sail for what he thought was In- dia in an effort to escape the Spanish Inquisition. If this is true, then it can safely be said that thousands of other Jews who fled Fer- dinand and Isabella's domi- nion in 1492 had a much better sense of direction. For in the same year that Columbus discovered the New World, thousands of Sephardic Jews fleeing the Inquisition headed due east and found a safe haven in the Ottoman Turkish Em- pire. The year 1992 marks the 500th anniversary of the ar- rival of these Jews, and the Jewish community of Turkey is planning a gala three-year celebration. The Quincentennial Foun- dation, established by the community, is organizing cultural and educational events both in Turkey and abroad to celebrate the legacy of Turkish Jewry. Symposia, concerts of Judeo-Spanish folk music, plays on Turkish-Jewish his- tory, contests, exhibits, documentary films, the res- toration of Byzantine syn- agogues, the planting of a commemorative forest and the setting up of a Jewish museum are all planned. "I think Turkey- is the only country in the world where Jews have lived for five cen- turies peacefully and con- tinuously," said Naim Guleryuz, vice president of the Quincentennial Founda- tion. Guleryuz noted that the celebration also seeks to honor the remarkable spirit of tolerance the Turks have shown toward their Jewish compatriots. "During a time when the concept of tolerance was not mentioned or even known, the Ottoman Empire welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees who were strangers to their language, religion and cul- ture." In 1492, Sultan Bayezid II ordered the governors of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire "not to refuse the Jews entry or cause them difficulties, but to receive them cordially." The edict was enforced with the threat of punishment. Unlike the Christian nation states of Europe, Turkey not only permitted the Jews to settle in Ot- toman lands — then corn- prising the present-day countries Iran, Iraq, Syria, Greece, Turkey, Palestine and Yugoslavia — but en- couraged, assisted and even compelled them to emigrate. It was thought that the educated and financially ac- Today, Turkish Jews, numbering between 22,000 and 24,000, are virtually indistinguishable from non-Jewish Turks. complished Jews of Spain could bring affluence and European sophistication to the Ottoman Empire. "The Catholic monarch Ferdinand impoverished Spain by the expulsion of the Jews and enriched Turkey," the sultan is known to have said. For 300 years following the Inquisition, the prosper- ity and creativity of the Ot- toman Jews rivaled that of the Golden Age of Spain. Istanbul, Izmir, Safed and Salonika became the centers of Sephardic Jewry. There, Jewish literature flourished. Joseph Caro's Shulchan Aruch and Shlomo Halevi's (Lechah Dodi) have become incorporated into modern Jewish liturgy. Ottoman Turkey in the 17th century was also the home of Shabtai Tzvi, the false Messiah who converted to Islam. But the Jewish Renaissance in Turkey was short-lived. The Ottoman Empire may have saved the Sephardic Jews from physical destruction, but it did not protect them from the forces of assimilation. By the 19th century, much of the Judeo-Spanish culture that the Jews had brought over from Spain, including the Ladino dialect and music, had all but disap- peared. "What is most interesting about the Turkish Jewish experience is the intermingl- ing of Jewish, Spanish and Turkish culture and customs," said Diane