The Jewish minority in Turkey, least of all other minorities in that country, has reason to fear persecution at the hands of the present regime. This is the opinion of Dr. Riza Tewfik, former liberal Turkish leader and scholar, now curator of the Antiquities Museum at Amman, Transylvania, in America on a lecture tour.
The passivity on the part of the Jewish community, particularly the action of the Jewish notables in renouncing their minority rights, which world Jewry has condemned, Dr. Tewfik views as an act of wisdom, the best safeguard against discrimination and persecution. The Jews have never shown any attempts at political independence, unlike the Greeks and the Armenians. For that reason they have never suffered at the hands of the Turkish government, he said.
Although an opponent of the present dictatorship and an exile from the country to whose political and cultural development he has devoted his career, Dr. Tewfik maintains that the government places no disabilities on the Jews.
The action of the Jewish notables, he termed an inevitable result of the present political philosophy of Turkey which insists that there be no nationalism in the land except Turkism. As an opponent of this philosophy, Dr. Tewfik renounced life professorship at the University of Constantinople and a life membership in the Turkish Senate. Turkey, he says, fears the possibility of foreign intervention, should national minority rights prevail. At the same time, however, he maintains that Jewish cultural and religious life is unaffected by the renunciation of minority rights.
Politically, the Jewish group fares no worse than any other Turkish citizens.
Dr. Tewfik denied that the Elsa Niego case and the prosecution of the nine Jews who participated in a demonstration against her murderer is an instance of anti-Semitism. The Niego murder is a regrettable incident which received publicity because a Jew and a Turk were involved; similar crimes in which the principals are Turks are no novelty in Turkey, he said. The prosecution of the Jewish demonstrants, he sees as an attempt to quell what might be termed anti-Turkish propaganda and is in line with the present Turkish nationalistic doctrine.
While the passivity of the Jewish community is politically fortunate, Dr. Tewfik maintains that its satisfaction with general conditions in the land has prevented it from producing a single outstanding leader. Even in commerce and industry where the Jews are influential, they are not outstanding. Proud of the fact that he is perhaps the first Turk to have received his primary education in a Jewish school, Dr. Tewfik expressed his admiration for what the Jews have been able to accomplish in other lands.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
