There were 44,000 Jews living in Istanbul in 1950, a census of the city which has just been made public revealed. There are no figures available for all of Turkey.
This figure represented a drop from 50,000 Jews in Istanbul in 1945. The decline is believed to have been caused by a migratory wave to Israel in 1948 and 1949. The 44,000 is made up roughly of 20,000 men and boys and 24,000 women and girls.
The number of Turkish Jews who spoke Ladino in 1950 was 39,000, as compared to 69,000 who spoke it in 1927, another poll revealed. Ladino has been replaced by Turkish and French as the major language of Turkish Jews. The report also disclosed that 72.4 percent of the Jews of Turkey were literate in 1950 as compared to 34.6 percent for the entire population. Literacy among Jews had risen since 1935 when it was recorded at 57.7 percent of the Jewish population.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
