I’ve been there. Spent a week traveling through Turkey before Erdogan. The country was very open, and we had a wonderful time. In fact, Istanbul had more Christmas decorations up than my liberal town in WA state.
Bursa is the last stop on the Silk Road, has fabulous silk scarves for sale, which of course I bought. And our guide proudly showed us this lovely church. It’s a sin and a crime to destroy it.
BTW, I went to Turkey with a Jewish friend. Nobody, but nobody, in Turkey cared.
We went some huge carpet factory up in the mountains, and the woman dyeing silk did have a long black thing on minus the veil. We looked at each other and burst out laughing about our differences—a high-five moment. She’d get ten lashes or worse now.
I mourn for Turkey now. I’m literally in tears.
Last winter I spent a week in Jerusalem, which is now held, as it should be, under the Star of David. I saw a t-shirt in the old city that said “In 1967, the IDF put the ‘Jew’ back in Jerusalem!”