Posted on 05/02/2002 5:14:09 PM PDT by Turk2
Jews of Turkish Origin Gather to Lobby for Turkey
Cumhuriyet-Jews of Turkish origin living in Switzerland are set to establish an association to bring together all Jews of Turkish origin throughout the world to lobby on Turkey's behalf. A ceremony will be held tomorrow to mark the establishment of the "Association of Jews from Turkey" with the attendance of Turkish State Minister Sukru Sina Gurel. Albert Covo, one of the group's founding members, stated that there was a deep-rooted friendship between Jews and Turkey which had endured for centuries and that the association hoped to reinforce this relationship by lobbying for Turkey within the international community.
Who exactly does this include?
1400 year old Anatolian communities?
Sephardic Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire?
Jews of the Central Asian countries, including the communities in Samarkand, Samara, and Taskent?
Karaites who still speak Kipchak?
Eastern European Jews decended from Turkish converts?
All of the above?
Gratitude and appreciation are the most important attitudes to possess.
Almost singularly so, there was no oppression of that small community since then: no oppressive legislation singling out the Jews, no pogroms from the public.
Moslems have concurred Iberia and ruled very harmoniously for centuries. Many historians note that Christians, Jews, and pagans live quite well under the Muslim rule.
In XI-XV centuries they were rooted out by the Cristian armies. Not that the Christians had any more claim to that land: they, too, invaded Iberia just a few centuries prior to Muslims. But Muslims were rooted out as occupiers.
Jews, on the other hand, came there with the Romans, no later than 1st century BC. They have never occupied or gought againts the Kings --- they never even formed a political entity; they were merely a part of the populaiton of Jewish faith.
They were expelled not as occupiers but as infidels, and Isabella said so herself; namely, that now, with Muslims gone, she wanted her realm to be entirely Christian.
Collaborators are always killed, Bear. Isabella offered the Jews conversion --- precisely because there was not "oppression" of Christians by Jews. Her objective was to have no infidels in the realm, and if Jews converted thaat would suit her just fine. Some Jews did indeed convert, most left. Of the latter, scores have perished by the hand of the rapist and the robber on land and of the pirate on the Mediterranian.
The "collaboration" and "persecution" libel has always been fabricated: most recently one hears that "Jews collaborated with the Communists agains the Poles" (as if Polish Jews were not Polish citizens) -- even that "Jews collaborated with the Nazis." This stupid libel is as old as anti-Semitism itself --- that is why "nobody seems to understand" it.
You should get out from the den more often, Bear.
"bring together all Jews of Turkish origin throughout the world"
When did they leave Turkey, and why?
Why the Greeks and Armenians of Asia Minor origin are not joining them in the lobbying?
Indeed. The Jews helped the Muslim invaders in 711AD. They then collaborated with the Islamic government. I think one of the things they may have done was tax collecting for the Muslims. In any case they certainly collaborated with the Muslim invaders and this is why they were expelled in 1492.
The Jews were grossly over-represented in Communist movements. This is well documented. The Polish Jews certainly collaborated with the Soviet Communist invaders. This is why the Eastern Europeans hated the Jews. Here is a study of Jewish involvement in the NKVD/Cheka:
http://www.ukar.org/shapov01.shtml
""Jews collaborated with the Nazis.""
Some Zionists collaborated with the Nazis because they hoped that Nazi anti-semitism would make European Jews emigrate to Palestine.
Yeh, right. And Khmelnitzky did not kill 180,000 Jews centuries before the first commie was born.
On the fact that Jews have embraced socialist I wrote myself a few days ago, but this is not the same thing as to say that they collaborated with the Soviets agains the Poles. It is the Poles who collaborated with the Soviets --- both of Christian and Jewish origin.
If you choose to believe this standard propaganda, go ahead. I am not interested.
The Jews embraced socialism and they also embraced Communism. There was a long history of conflict between Poles and Jews in Poland. Before 1939 Poland was ruled by a dictator that pursued strongly anti-Jewish policies. It is only logical that the Jews there would have collaborated with the Soviets, expecially given the appeal that Communism apparently had for Jews at the time.
The Christians didn't invade Spain. The people of Spain converted to Christianity. The Muslims on the other hand came as invaders. The Christians, therefore, being the descendants of the native people of Spain had a valid claim to the land, whereas the Muslim Moors, as invaders and oppressors, had no claim to it. The Spanish people fought a long and bloody struggle of 700 years, the reconquest, to take back their land from the Muslim oppressors and in doing so saved all Europe from Islamic rule.
I do not want to debate the issue of anti-Semitism in Europe or Eastern Europe. The history goes much farther than the dictator in Poland that you mentioned. Anti-Semitism there has a long, long tradition.
That history is not one-sided, however. I believe that before the Holocaust, 10% of Poles where Jewish. During the Holocaust, literally thousands of Catolics risked their lives to hide their Jewish fellow citizens. Many have died doing so. It is an insult to them to talk about the animosity between the "Poles and the Jews."
The Jews have embraces socialist and communism precisely because for the first time in European history someone promised them equality and the ability to get outside the Pal of Settlement in the Russian Empire. Of course, like all other promises, this was kept only briefly: even the atheist commies when beating a Jew in 1970s Russia or Ukraine would tell him that he was the "Christ-killer."
Which explains to my original remark: in all times, then-current problems in Europe were blamed on the Jews. In our times, it is socialism and communism; so it is popular in Russia, I hear, to say that it was "the Jews who imposed the revolution on the Russians." Similarly, in Poland it was the Jews who collaborated more than Catholics with the Russians.
These topics are very important today in Eastern Europe, so this is why you hear them. A few hundred years ago, it was the Jews who drank all the water during the draught. They were blamed for the Plague.
There is nothing new in these arguments. Their form is the same: they all something semingly true (the Jews indeed embraced communism en masse), but make a wrong attribution or distort the facts.
Again, I am giving you a courtesy of reply in response to your polite and considerate post. But I would much prefer not to start a debate on this issue; it is unrelated to the thread.
Thank you for writing.
The Western Goths (Visigoths), who had nothing to do with that part whatever, invaded the Roman emprire in the beginning of the V century. Rome was sacked, and Iberia concured almost entirely. Shortly thereafter, their King was converted to Christianity. In another hundred or so years, Moores concurred all of Iberia with the exception of the Basque country; they called it al Andalus.
Spaniards today are a mixture of Goths, Berbers, Slavs (these were imported as slaves --- which is how the word "slave" came about), Roma (Gypsies), converts from Islam and Judaism. Except for the Basques, whom even Romas could not concure, there are no indigenous people there. You may want to read up on that people to understand who where "people of Spain" who converted to Christianity.
One objection I would raise: you seem to be siding with co-religioninst, whereas you should be siding with right agains wrong. This shows, in particular, in your perception of Moores as "oppressors" and rather warm perception of the Catholics of that period. As I said earlier, Moores in al Andalus are usually sited as a historically significant example of tolerance and harmony; they ruled Iberia for almost a thousand years (most parts were given up in XII century, but Granada fell in 1492). Most importantly, you may want to gather more facts about that period.
How is it "distorting" the facts? I don't see how it is distorting the facts to say the truth, that the Jews supported Communism more than anybody else.
"The Jews have embraces socialist and communism precisely because for the first time in European history someone promised them equality and the ability to get outside the Pal of Settlement in the Russian Empire."
If this is so then why did the Western Jews in the USA, France, Britain (who even had a Jewish Prime Minister)and Germany, which had relative equality, also support Communism and Socialism in such great disproportion to their numbers? There were also other oppressed minorities in the Russian Empire, including the Poles, and they did not support Communism as disproportionately as the Jews did.
"Which explains to my original remark: in all times, then-current problems in Europe were blamed on the Jews. "
The problem goes much father back but again it is not as one-sided as you make it sound. The Jews engaged in certain practices that were objectionable to the Christians. They often allied themselves with cruel monarchs and served them as tax collectors, for instance. Of course the common people then hated the Jews for being the ones that taxed them to death. This often resulted in pogroms. When the Jew-hatred got out of hand the monarchs who had allied themselves with the Jews then kicked out the Jews and misrepresented themselves to the people as the ones who saved them from the Jewish tax-collectors. The media nowadays makes it look like those pogroms were unprovoked but in fact they were often the result of Jewish tax-collecting for the monarchs.
Thank you for the courteousness in your posts.
I am aware of this. The point is they converted to Christianity and they were the native people, the people who lived there. The Muslims were foreign invaders.
"One objection I would raise: you seem to be siding with co-religioninst, whereas you should be siding with right agains wrong. This shows, in particular, in your perception of Moores as "oppressors" and rather warm perception of the Catholics of that period. As I said earlier, Moores in al Andalus are usually sited as a historically significant example of tolerance and harmony; they ruled Iberia for almost a thousand years (most parts were given up in XII century, but Granada fell in 1492). Most importantly, you may want to gather more facts about that period."
I am of the opinion that this is promoted by liberal historians who want to promote multiculturalism and mass immigration by Muslims into Europe and hate the idea that the Spanish kings kicked out Jews and Muslims. I don't trust official mainstream historians. They usually present a distorted, one-sided leftist picture of history. But yes, I probably should study the period more but I do know enough about it to know that the Jews helped the Muslim invaders in 711 and thereafter collaborated with the occupation.
In no way can I side with Muslim invaders of Europe, particularly since I myself am of Spanish ancestry. They were invaders and they would have taken over all Europe and destroyed our culture if we hadn't stopped them. There would be no Western Civilization, no USA, etc. had they prevailed.
By the way, the name Al Andalus is a derivative of "Vandalusia" which was named after the Germanic Vandals. It is now known as "Andalucia".
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